Salary surrender for Wynn Resorts Limited executives

The senior leadership of American casino operator Wynn Resorts Limited has reportedly announced that it will be forgoing some or all of its salaries for 2020 in an attempt to help mitigate the financial impacts of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

According to a Tuesday report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper, the coronavirus epidemic has so far killed 785 people across the United States and last week led Nevada to temporarily shutter every one of its 219 commercial casinos including the Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Las Vegas properties run by Wynn Resorts Limited.

Investor indifference:

This month-long shutdown immediately caused the price of individual shares in the NASDAQ-listed operator to decrease by almost 21% to be worth only $43.02. Although this figure has since improved to stand at around $66.56, it nevertheless represents a crash of some 53% since the start of the year and is approximately 73% lower than the all-time high of $247.95 seen in 2014.

February fall:

Las Vegas-headquartered Wynn Resorts Limited was also financially hobbled last month as a result of the 15-day closure of every one of the 39 casinos in Macau. This action from the government of the former Portuguese enclave was an effort to stop the spread of the highly-contagious coronavirus strain and resulted in the value of shares in the operator’s Hong Kong-listed Wynn Macau Limited subsidiary, which is responsible for the giant Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace Cotai venues, plummeting to a three-year low of just $1.80.

Extreme effort:

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that executives at Wynn Resorts Limited have now revealed that they will be swapping at least 33% of their upcoming annual salaries for company stock in an attempt to help the firm to recover. The newspaper detailed that the company, which additionally runs Massachusetts’ Encore Boston Harbor casino resort, furthermore confirmed that its Chief Executive Officer, Matt Maddox, had agreed to take the even more drastic step of foregoing his entire $1.9 million wage for 2020.

Employee encouragement:

Wynn Resorts Limited reportedly detailed last week that it would be helping workers at its now-shuttered Encore Boston Harbor, Wynn Las Vegas and Encore Las Vegas properties by agreeing to pay their full wages including average tips for the next 30 days.