The Star Entertainment Group is set to ax its corporate head office and eliminate hundreds of roles in a radical decentralisation plan. New CEO Bruce Mathieson Jr told staff the current structure added complexity rather than value. The move follows a A$300 million rescue deal by Bally’s and the Mathieson family aimed at satisfying regulators and securing the company’s future.
The era of the bloated corporate headquarters is over for The Star Entertainment Group. In a move that signals a total dismantling of the old guard, newly minted chief executive Bruce Mathieson Jr has informed staff that the company’s head office will be shut down in its current form. This tectonic shift in operations is expected to result in hundreds of redundancies as the embattled casino operator attempts to claw its way back from the brink of financial and regulatory collapse.
The decision comes only weeks after the company’s chairman, Soo Kim, hinted that the scale of the corporate office was no longer sustainable. In an internal memo, Mathieson Jr was blunt about the necessity of the cull, stating that the business must act decisively to build a sustainable future. He argued that the centralised model had become a hindrance, adding layers of complexity that distanced leadership from the front-line staff and the customers. Under the new plan, management responsibilities will be handed back to the individual precincts in Sydney, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast.
This restructure is not merely a cost-cutting exercise but a strategic pivot dictated by the new masters of the house. US-based Bally’s Corporation and the Mathieson family investment vehicle took control of the firm following a A$300 million emergency cash injection late last year. The deal saved The Star from the looming threat of administration after previous refinancing attempts failed. The new owners have been vocal about their desire to simplify the business, noting that the corporate headcount had inexplicably ballooned from 600 to 1,100 over the last five years.
The timing of the announcement coincided with yet another exodus from the C suite. Chief financial officer Frank Krile and chief operating officer Jeannie Mok have both resigned, joining a growing list of departed executives that includes former CEO Steve McCann. With the board now dominated by Bally’s nominees and the Mathieson family, the company is being remade in the image of its rescuers. The move to decentralise is also a peace offering to regulators in New South Wales and Queensland, who have long criticised the lack of accountability within the previous corporate hierarchy.
While the exact number of job losses remains unconfirmed, insiders suggest the impact will be severe. The Star currently employs roughly 600 people in its corporate division, and while some may find roles within the individual casino properties, a significant portion are expected to be shown the door. It is a ruthless but perhaps inevitable evolution for a company that has spent the last two years jumping from one crisis to another. For the remaining staff, the message is clear: the era of the distant corporate overlord is finished, and the focus must return to the gaming floor.
This is the final nail in the coffin for the previous era of The Star. For a decade, the company operated with a sense of untouchable corporate arrogance, but the arrival of Bruce Mathieson Jr and Bally’s has brought a cold, hard dose of reality. The decision to scrap the head office is a classic private equity style move: strip out the middle management, flatten the hierarchy, and force the individual units to justify their own existence. In the gambling world, decentralisation is often a double-edged sword. While it allows for quicker decision-making at the property level, it also places an enormous amount of pressure on local managers who no longer have a corporate safety net to lean on.
From a regulatory perspective, this is exactly what the commissions in New South Wales and Queensland wanted to see. The various inquiries into The Star highlighted a culture where the corporate office was often disconnected from the compliance failures happening on the ground. By pushing management back to the precincts, there is no longer anywhere to hide. If a compliance breach occurs in Sydney, the Sydney team owns it. This level of granular accountability is essential if The Star ever hopes to regain its full casino licences, which currently remain under the control of independent managers.
However, we must consider the human cost and the operational risk. Cutting hundreds of jobs during a period of intense regulatory scrutiny is a gamble in itself. The Star is essentially trying to rebuild the plane while it is still in the air. Losing veteran executives like Frank Krile and Jeannie Mok at the same time as a mass redundancy programme creates a vacuum of institutional knowledge. Bally’s and Mathieson are betting that a leaner, meaner Star will be more agile, but they risk stripping away the very expertise required to navigate the complex Australian regulatory landscape. It is a high-stakes play that will either save the company or leave it hopelessly fragmented.
