After pay cut, Genting boss still took home RM74.8m in 2020

KUALA LUMPUR (April 10): Genting Bhd chairman and chief executive Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay (pictured) took home RM74.81 million in salary and bonus last year, even after taking a pay cut of up to 30% since March, when Covid-19 started hitting hard.

The amount is 32.4% lower compared with the RM110.73 million that he received in 2019, according to the group's annual reports for the two years.

In terms of total remuneration, however, Lim's package of RM151.34 million in 2020 is a tad bit higher than RM151.09 million in 2019. The slight increase was due to “other short term employee benefits” totalling RM51.34 million that he received in 2020, compared with RM420,000 in 2019.

Genting posted a net loss of RM1.02 billion for the financial year ended Dec 31, 2020 (FY20), against a net profit of RM2 billion in FY19, while revenue fell 46.5% to RM11.56 billion from RM21.62 billion.

The group attributed the lower financial performance to mainly the group’s leisure and hospitality division that was adversely affected by temporary closures of leisure properties worldwide due to lockdowns implemented by respective governments to curb Covid-19, and the subsequent resumption of business with reduced capacity.

Of the RM74.81 million salary and bonus Lim received in 2020, a total of RM30.14 million was from Genting’s 49.5%-owned hilltop casino operator Genting Malaysia Bhd (GenM). This is 21.7% lower than the RM38.5 million paid by GenM in 2019.

In terms of total remuneration, he received RM49.57 million from GenM in 2020, a decline of 26.8% from RM67.72 million in 2019, according to GenM's 2019 and 2020 annual reports.

GenM reported a net loss of RM2.26 billion in FY20, versus a net profit of RM1.34 billion in FY19, while revenue fell 56.5% to RM4.53 billion from RM10.41 billion.

"For the first time in our history, we had to temporarily close all our resort operations worldwide from mid-March 2020, in compliance with the respective government directives, until mid-June of last year," the company had stated.

Subsequently, there was a temporary closure of GenM’s resorts from Jan 22, 2021 to mid-February 2021, during the movement control order 2.0 phase.

Genting’s shares closed 0.77% or four sen higher at RM5.23 yesterday, valuing the group at RM20.28 billion. Over the past year, the stock had gained 41.4% from RM3.70.

GenM’s shares, which had surged 49.8% over the past one year, finished unchanged at RM3.10 today, giving a market capitalisation of RM18.41 billion.

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