Chief executive of CDL's hotel arm quits after four months

THE group chief executive officer (CEO) of mainboard-listed City Developments Limited's (CDL) hotel arm, Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (M&C), has resigned after four months in the position.

Clarence Tan, 52, will cease to be CEO of M&C from Aug 2. He was appointed on April 2.

"Mr Tan has shared that he is resigning in order to spend more time with his family," CDL said on Tuesday evening. "Moving forward, he remains open to interesting or suitable opportunities that may come along."

CDL took M&C private last year, and the British company was subsequently delisted from the London Stock Exchange.

Mr Tan was the first to take the helm after the delisting, following the departure of former M&C group CEO and director Jennifer Fox in September 2018 after three months in the job. No reason was given for Ms Fox's move.

Before taking up the CEO position, Mr Tan was managing director for South-east Asia and Korea for InterContinental Hotels Group.

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He said back in March that he saw "a significant opportunity to reshape M&C's strategies and reposition the business" amid operating challenges and uncertainty brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Earlier in May, M&C cut its global headcount by 8 per cent and furloughed another 30 per cent of staff in its owned-and-managed hotel portfolio as the pandemic and government restriction measures hit its business.

Senior management and executives in M&C have, since April 1, also accepted salary cuts of up to 30 per cent, depending on their seniority.

Shares of CDL were trading at S$8.42 as at 9.05am on Wednesday, down S$0.08 or 0.9 per cent.