Australian casino operator Crown Resorts Limited is set to unveil its annual interim financial results tomorrow and reports abound that the occasion will also see the firm’s long-serving Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Rowen Craigie, announce his resignation.
According to reports from The Australian Financial Review and The Australian newspapers, Craigie’s departure is set to come as part of a series of efficiency savings at the Melbourne-based company that will additionally include hundreds of job cuts and a scaling back on corporate sponsorships.
Craigie joined Crown Resorts Limited in 1993 before being named to the firm’s top jobs in 2007 and has reportedly since earned a salary and performance-related incentives worth approximately $42.4 million. The Australian reported that he is set to be replaced by the company’s Australian Resorts Chief Executive Officer, Barry Felstead, as the company behind the Crown Casino And Entertainment Complex in Melbourne and the Crown Perth property as well as the coming $2 billion Crown Sydney development gets down to shifting its attention away from global expansion and back to its domestic market.
Sydney-listed Crown Resorts Limited, which has a market capitalization of around $5.74 billion and is controlled by principal shareholder James Packer, last month named John Alexander as its new Executive Chairman following the “mutually agreed” resignation of predecessor Robert Rankin. This change came in the wake of October’s arrests of 18 members of the firm’s staff in China for “gambling crimes” thought to be connected with its policy of wooing wealthy gamblers to its properties in Australia.
“This realignment of corporate priorities, which Rob strongly endorsed and drove, coupled with his own professional and personal priorities based overseas made this conversation, like all our conversations, straightforward,” read a statement from Packer concerning Rankin’s January departure. “I trust and respect him as much today as ever and we remain the closest of friends.”
The previous twelve months has moreover seen the Australian gambling giant sell off 13.4% of its stake in Asia-focused casino operator Melco Crown Entertainment Limited to Hong Kong-based Melco International Development Limited for approximately $1.2 billion and step away from its role in the?Alon Las Vegas development in Nevada.