What’s really going on in the recent game of he said, she said between Hard Rock International and Star Entertainment?

It all started with a Star Entertainment ASX filing at 9:10am Sydney time (7:10am Macau time) Monday morning in which Star noted “certain media articles speculating on potential corporate activity involving the Star.” The company “confirm[ed] that it has received inbound interest from number of external parties regarding potential transactions.”

The media speculation in question was from the Australian Financial Review, who confidently reported that “a consortium led by Hard Rock is interested in acquiring and potentially rebranding Star.” The AFR followed up with a number of Hard Rock stories and began breathless speculation on a Hard Rock acquisition of Star and the implications of same. A Star share price bump in the order of 20% ensued! Gripping stuff!