Casino op Genting Malaysia pay cuts March-May: reports

Mar 03, 2021 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck  

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Genting Malaysia Bhd, the promoter of Malaysia’s only casino complex, Resorts World Genting (pictured), is planning salary cuts for staff during the March to May period inclusive, reported several financial media outlets, citing company materials.

Resorts World Genting, located in an upland area outside Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, only reopened on February 16, after being closed for more than three weeks as a Covid-19 countermeasure.

Genting Malaysia’s “senior management” – including its “deputy chairman, chief executive officer and all vice presidents and above” – have voluntarily agreed to waive 20 percent of their salaries from March to May, reported Malaysia’s The Edge, citing a company memo.

The casino company has also asked some of its other staff to agree a “15-percent to 20-percent” reduction from this month until May, in their base salary depending on their rank, or to take one day of non-paid leave per week, reported separately The Edge and Bloomberg, citing internal company communication.

GGRAsia approached Genting Malaysia for comment on the reports, but had not received a reply by the time this story went online.

The news outlets said the internal communications spoke of the need to “control Resort World Genting’s cost base” to “ensure the sustainability” of its business as well as to protect existing jobs. The commentary was attributed to Genting Malaysia’s president and chief operating officer, Lee Choong Yan.

In mid-June, Bloomberg had reported – mentioning the source as people familiar with the matter – that Genting Malaysia was cutting about 15 percent of its workforce, or about 3,000 jobs, having already flagged earlier that year, plans to cut pay. At the time, the group had not commented on the report.

In its fourth-quarter and full-year results filed this February, Genting Malaysia – which also controls some casino business in the United Kingdom and  Egypt, and the United States and the Bahamas – said that in the three months to December 31, it had “a reduction in payroll and related costs due to lower headcount”.

Operations at Resorts World Genting had been suspended from March 18 till June 19 last year, as part of national efforts to contain the spread  of Covid-19. Subsequently the casino resort complex has been running at reduced capacity as a safety precaution.

For full-year 2020, Genting Malaysia reported a net loss of just above MYR2.26 billion (US$558.1 million), compared to a profit of MYR1.40 billion a year earlier. That was on revenue that declined 56.5 percent year-on-year, to MYR4.53 billion.

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