No, I am not referring to James Packer's relationship with Maria Carey when I talk about hitting the high notes, but the share price of his casino empire.
The deepening slump in Crown Resorts Ltd's (ASX: CWN) share price to a five-month low will fuel further speculation that James Packer will move to privatise the casino and hotel operator.
Shares in Crown tumbled 1.8% to $12.16 in early trade and it is trading in "bear" territory as it has lost 22% of its value since hitting its high for the year in February.
The technical definition of a bear market is a 20% or more pullback and the sell-off is largely triggered by the crash in revenue from its Macau joint venture in the wake of the Chinese government's aggressive crackdown on corruption.
No prizes for guessing who the high rollers are in that gambling mecca and the bigger problem is that these big revenue earners for the casinos may never come back.
So while the big revenue decline seems to be finally petering out, investors are still reluctant to make a punt on the stock even though it is looking cheap at around current levels.
Based on consensus forecasts, Crown is trading on a price-earnings multiple of about 15x for 2015-16, which is close to the bottom of the valuation range over the past five years.
This is why speculation reported in The Australian that Packer, who holds the chairmanship of Crown, is contemplating taking the group private shouldn't be laughed off.
Packer already owns half of Crown and has a personal and friendly relationship with a number of other large shareholders on the register.
The Australian nominates fund manager Perpetual Limited (ASX: PPT), which owns 6.2% of Crown shares, as one such friend as its head of equities, Paul Skamvougersas used to manage Packer's family fortune at Ellerston for seven years.
The more important question is how will this affect shareholders. There's no easy answer as Packer's privatisation ambitions are only rumours and no formal proposal has been put forward.
But Packer will likely still have to pay a premium to what the share price is fetching at the time, although the number of friends he has on the share register means he could get away with paying a pretty small premium for the stock.
Given the downward trajectory of the stock (and the lack of buying support even in light of the privatisation rumours), I doubt shareholders will get anything close to fair value for their Crown shares unless the stock stabilises at current levels and we can get a 25% takeover premium on top.
But that is probably wishful thinking on my part and the privatisation speculation could actually put a cap on a share price recovery as investors could be put off from buying the stock on fears that Packer would outmaneuvre them.
See? Packer does know how to dance with bears.
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