James Packer's Crown Resorts is spinning off its troubled Macau investment as part of efforts to realise the value of its casinos in Melbourne, Perth and eventually Sydney.
The company plans to demerge its international investments and create a new property trust for its Melbourne and Perth hotels, allowing it to focus on its Australian casinos, high-end London casino and online gambling operations.
Chairman Robert Rankin, who replaced James Packer in the role in August, said Crown Resorts has long been looking to deal with a significant undervaluation of its assets by the share market.
"In particular, we believe that Crown Resorts' extremely high quality Australian resorts are not being fully valued and the Crown Resorts share price has been highly correlated to the performance of its investment in Macau," he said.
Crown's market value has fallen by more than a third since the beginning of 2014, as challenging conditions in Macau have caused a sharp tumble in revenue for its Melco Crown Entertainment joint venture.
Crown recently reduced its stake in MCE to 27.4 per cent, which will be the main asset in a proposed, separately listed company Crown is calling InternationalCo.
"Following the proposed demerger, investors will have the opportunity to invest in Crown Resorts which will own and operate Australia's pre-eminent integrated resorts, with exciting developments such as Crown Sydney," Mr Rankin said.
The company's non-casino assets in Australia - Melbourne and Perth's Crown Promenade hotels and Crown Metropol hotels, and the under construction Crown Towers Perth hotel - are also being shifted into a new property trust.
The trust will be listed on the share market and hold a 49 per cent stake in those hotels, while Crown Resorts retains 51 per cent.
Changes are also afoot for Crown's dividends, with 100 per cent of its normalised net profit to be paid out from October, a move that if in place in 2015 would have resulted in a 35 per cent boost to dividends.
The restructure plans remain subject to finalisation by Crown's board and approval from governments and regulators.
Meanwhile, the company's plans to keep Mr Packer on as a senior executive have been scrapped.
The casino group remains a priority for Mr Packer, who holds a controlling stake, and is deputy chairman at MCE, Crown Resorts said.
Mr Packer said in a statement he fully supported the board's decisions on Wednesday.
"Crown is one of Australia's most successful tourism and leisure company's and I am extremely proud of what we have achieved with our resorts in Australia, but also across Asia," he said.
"This new corporate structure well positions Crown for the next decade as we continue to grow our business and meet the needs of the emerging Asian middle class."
