Supplier News
US – Scientific confirms furloughs and wage cuts to ‘meet demands of this outbreak’
By Phil - 31 March 2020
Scientific Games has said it is was furloughing an undisclosed number of its workforce, reducing pay and work hours for others, and halving the salaries of executive leadership with Chief Executive Officer Barry Cottle volunteering a 100 per cent reduction in his wage to address cost-cutting in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scientific Games CEO Barry Cottle said: “Like many others, our industry is facing unprecedented challenges from the widespread impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. We are working around the clock to take care of our employees, customers, shareholders and other key stakeholders in these difficult times, while providing uninterrupted products and services to those customers who continue to operate. Thankfully, we came into this year with a very strong liquidity position, including substantial capacity under our revolver, and also refinanced our debt, extended our major maturities and lowered our interest expense. We have a diverse portfolio of assets, product and services that uniquely position us to weather this crisis.
“We are taking a variety of actions to help ensure that we meet the demands of this outbreak and are ready when the industry begins to recover. I am confident that the measures we are taking now will prepare us to come out of the crisis even stronger than before. And, I have never been prouder to lead a team where everyone is stepping up to help each other, our partners and our Company.”
The company is instituting a number of cost-savings measures to ensure stability for team members and protect the operations of the company. Some of these measures include workforce hour and pay reductions to preserve as many jobs as possible and furloughs for those support roles that have seen a decrease in industry work. During this challenging time, the executive leadership team has committed to a voluntary 50 per cent salary reduction while Chief Executive Officer Barry Cottle has volunteered a 100 per cent reduction in pay.
The statement continued: “We recognise that the temporary furloughs that are made necessary by the impact of COVID-19 on our xompany create substantial hardship for the furloughed employees and their families. We are establishing a Hardship Relief Fund to provide short-term assistance to those employees and their immediate families who incur unexpected and onerous personal, family, or living expenses as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. The company, Barry Cottle and several other senior executives will be making contributions to the fund.”
“Scientific Games is committed to supporting our customers in this crisis by continuing to provide quality, secure products and services to partners across lottery, iGaming, sports betting and land-based casinos. In addition, SciPlay continues to publish free-to-play apps for players to enjoy.”
