Nick Naples, the co-chief operating officer of Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (MPEL), a Macau gaming sub-concessionaire, has left the company with immediate effect it said in a statement to the New York Stock Exchange.
“Melco Crown Entertainment today announces the implementation of a new, streamlined management structure aimed at enhancing organizational efficiency, as well as improving the integration of gaming and non-gamingoperations.To implement our new management structure, Mr Ying Tat Chan (“Mr [Ted] Chan”), currently the Co-Chief Operating Officer, Gaming, has been appointed as the Company’s sole Chief Operating Officer, overseeing both gaming and non-gaming activities across City of Dreams, Altira Macau, and Mocha Clubs, with effect from February 27, 2012. Following Mr Chan’s appointment as sole Chief Operating Officer, the position of Co-Chief Operating Officer, Operations has been eliminated. Mr Nicholas C Naples (“Mr. Naples”), our previous Co-Chief Operating Officer, Operations, has departed from the Company on February 27, 2012 upon mutual agreement.”
Lawrence Ho, Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Melco Crown Entertainment, added in the statement, “We are encouraged in our belief that the new management structure will make us a more agile company, better positioned to move quickly in a dynamic market.”I am confident that Mr Chan’s breadth and depth of knowledge and experience in Macau make him uniquely qualified to be our COO, and I believe that he and his team will build on the successes of the last 18 months.
Dow Jones Newswires said – quoting an unnamed source – that Alidad Tash, senior vice president of strategic marketing, will now assume responsibility for gaming operations, and that Sunny Yu has been promoted from vice president of entertainment at the company to senior vice president of that function.
Earlier this year, Michael French, who had been senior vice president of operations at the company’s City of Dreams property from 2007 through 2010 before assuming leadership of the company’s Altira property, left Melco Crown to become chief operating officer of a casino resort project in Manila controlled by billionaire Philippine ports magnate Enrique Razon added Dow Jones.