GGRAsia – Retailer DFS has ’5pct Macau staff exit amid market changes’

Retailer DFS has ’5pct Macau staff exit amid market changes’

Aug 27, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Luxury goods retailer DFS Group – which has a presence in a number of Macau casino resorts – has recently seen the exit of “5 percent” of its Macau workforce.

That is according to the retail group’s response to local Chinese-language news outlet, AllIn Media. The latter’s report, which cited an anonymous source, claimed that DFS Group had recently “laid off” 80 staff members of the Macau sales team, all of them “imported” labour. That was understood to be a reference to non-resident workers. It was not clear whether the 80-people figure accounted for the 5 percent reduction.

GGRAsia has approached DFS Group, asking for clarification and comment on the report.

According to previous reports, in June the retail firm announced an unpaid leave policy for its Macau staff members, who were requested to take the leave in July or August.

AllIn Media cited in its Monday report some official comment from DFS Group, saying it had been necessary to make some “hard decisions” regarding its Macau workforce, due to the city’s high-end retail market having seen “rapid changes”.

DFS was also cited in the report stating that “5 percent” of its employees were “leaving” the Macau team.

According to the DFS website, its Macau operations are currently all within casino resorts. They are at: Sands China Ltd’s The Londoner Macao and Four Seasons Macao; Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd’s City of Dreams, and Studio City; Wynn Macau Ltd’s Wynn Palace; MGM China Holdings Ltd’s MGM Cotai, and MGM Macau; and Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd’s Galaxy Macau.

A number of Macau casino operators reported during the second-quarter results season, downturns in non-gaming revenue including for the shopping segment.

Galaxy Macau saw its second-quarter non-gaming net revenue fell 9.1 percent sequentially to HKD8.64 billion (US$1.1 billion), according to Galaxy Entertainment’s interim results filed on August 15.

Income from Galaxy Macau’s mall declined 12.1 percent sequentially to HKD326 million. The latter tally though was still 13 percent above pre-Covid 19 level, JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd noted in a memo following Galaxy Entertainment’s interim results.

The brokerage had noted: “Peers such as Sands and Wynn have exhibited similar trends already, as well as a slew of heavy misses and [earnings] guidance [being] cut at European luxury names in the second quarter.

“It is certainly concerning and something that we would closely monitor into the second half” of this year, added JP Morgan.