The chairman of Australia-based Ainsworth Game Technology noted in the company’s annual report that dividends, suspended in response to the Covid-19 crisis and shutdowns, will not be reinstated until “markets become more predictable.”
“Given the effects of the pandemic, the board has prudently decided to place the dividend policy on hold,” Chairman Danny Gladstone said in the report.
The company had noted in its preliminary annual results for the fiscal year to June 30, issued in August that it had suspended dividend payouts. Ainsworth had reported a 12-month loss amounting to AUD43.4 million (US$30.9 million), compared to a prior-year profit of AUD10.9 million. The firm also said it cut 107 jobs during the reporting period.
Lawrence Levy, the firm’s chief executive, said in the final report that during the “downtime” occasioned by the pandemic, the group set up its “entire workforce to work remotely, maintaining daily contact with management, establishing new game feature parameters and creating a pipeline of new, innovative and intuitive core products.
“Looking to fiscal year 2021 and beyond, I consider that the company is in a strong position to recover. We had just launched our new A-Star cabinets in February 2020, prior to the global lockdown. We are now starting to roll out this hardware regionally, with Australia, North and Latin America already receiving positive feedback and strong performance numbers from our initial installations.”
