More bad news for Star Casino as the embattled gaming giant scrambles for a last-minute cash injection

Star Entertainment shares have plummeted after a trading halt was lifted on the gaming giant as it continues to scramble for an eleventh-hour lifeline. 

Trading in the company’s shares was paused on Friday morning after it failed to post its half-yearly financial results by a 10am deadline. 

Once trading resumed, shares fell by more than 15 per cent to a low of 10 cents at noon before plateauing at 11 cents per share. 

At 11 cents per share, the value has dropped 42 per cent since trading began this year and a 76 per cent over the six months leading. 

In an announcement posted to the ASX website, the group said it planned to share its results by the day’s end, but not until it fielded some ‘liquidity proposals’. 

‘The company is continuing to explore possible liquidity solutions that might materially increase the group’s liquidity position and anticipates that it will receive one or more liquidity proposals during the course of today,’ it said. 

‘It is likely the [half-yearly] report will only be able to be finalised if the company has received liquidity proposals which… are sufficiently capable of being progressed to finalisation in the context of determining whether the company can continue as a going concern.’

On Thursday evening, the Australian Financial Review reported the gaming operator’s board were struggling to sign off on accounts saying the company was a going concern. 

A company is considered ‘a going concern’ when it can meet its financial obligations in the foreseeable future. 

Directors of a company must be satisfied their company is ‘a going concern’ in order to register on the ASX. 

Last month, the company told its shareholders the firm was down to its last $79million after spending $107million over the three months leading. 

Shortly after, Morningstar analyst Angus Hewitt made headlines with a note to investors putting the company’s chance of short-term survival at 50-50. 

‘Operating conditions are weak, with mandatory carded play and poor consumer sentiment,’ he said. 

‘We now incorporate a 50 per cent probability that Star falls into administration, and equity holders are wiped out.’

A collapse of the gaming empire, who operates casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, would put thousands of Australians out of work. 

Earlier this month, the company said it was flirting with a potential $650million injection US-based asset management fir, Oaktree Capital. 

Shareholders were given fresh hope when Star said it had been approached by foreign buyers on the potential sale of its share in the debt-addled Queens Wharf precinct in Brisbane. 

Whether and from where the company will be able to secure a much-needed lifeline is not yet clear – though it is unlikely to come in the form of a state government bailout. 

Last year, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns stepped in to offer the embattled Sydney Star Casino a ‘transitional’ tax levy. 

Under the sweetheart deal, branded as a way to protect NSW jobs, the Minns government agreed to lower a tax rate hike on poker machine duties proposed by the Coalition. 

In January, however, Minns said his government did not ‘have money for casinos’. 

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli offered a more barbed rebuke, taking aim not at the industry, but at the company’s leadership. 

‘Debts that are owed must be paid and we are happy to talk about into the future, about opportunities for whoever might run that business, about opportunities to grow and thrive in Queensland,’ he said. 

‘But our non-negotiable is around the people who work there’.