Where in the world is Christopher Coyne? You know him, Crown Resort's chief marketing officer.
This is the guy who signed off on the sponsorship deal with rugby league's Melbourne Storm in 2015 – and promoted its links to Chinese tennis great, Li Na – along with other deals which are no longer part of Crown's cost cutting future under executive chairman, John Alexander.
Li Na appearing at Crown Live on the Riverwalk today at 12:30pm. Sunshine, tacos, pizza, burgers and bands too! pic.twitter.com/vPNnccnZ6c
— Crown (@CrownResorts) January 17, 2016
The word is, the marketing guru is no longer part of Crown's grand future now that James Packer has put the whole business into reverse gear.
CBD received word that Coyne's diary has been cleared, along with his office. Not that Coyne returned our calls, and Crown did not reply to CBD's queries.
He appears to have joined other high-profile departures such as former chairman, Rob Rankin, and long time CEO, Rowen Craigie.
The next question is whether Coyne's big data plans will survive his ouster.
It was a meant to be a big driver of Crown's loyalty program which is increasingly important to our local casino operators – not just Crown – given the Chinese VIP drought.
As Matt Bekier told analysts after Star Entertainment's half-year results, about 70 per cent of domestic revenue comes from customers in its loyalty program.
Coyne was heading these efforts for Crown.
"I think about loyalty as a product – our loyalty efforts are going to be the lifeblood of Crown as we move forward and go from a $9 billion market cap to something much bigger," Coyne told local trade mag CMO (as in chief marketing officer) in 2015.
Unfortunately for Coyne, Crown is now closer to an $8 billion market cap rather than $9 billion, and bloodletting is the new game.
Premiership play
AFL's retiring chairman, Mike Fitzpatrick, finally scored a win at his troubled boutique funds manager, Pacific Current Group.
Investors overwhelmingly approved the restructure that promises to fix the problems caused by its disastrous 2014 merger with Northern Lights Capital Group.
"The board believes the simplification restructuring will allow PAC to move forward in a way that will optimise the creation of value for shareholders and the board looks forward to focusing on achieving that goal," it said in a statement to the ASX with the results of the shareholder meeting.
As a number of prominent investors have told CBD over the last week or so, a board interested in value creation would not have proposed that awful deal in the first place.
Follow CBD on Twitter. Got a tip? ckruger@fairfaxmedia.com.au
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