Dear Shareholders, Directors, and Business Partners:
With the current COVID-19 pandemic threatening the entire world, DFNN is presently facing one of the toughest challenges in the history of the company.
For the past few days, the team has been in constant communication with both regulators and legislators at all levels to ensure that we can provide assistance in whatever aspect as needed and do our part in this fight against an enemy that cannot be seen by the naked eye.
In response to the President’s call for support to combat this increasingly growing threat, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation officially announced the temporary nationwide suspension of all casino and other gaming operations which encompass bingo games operators, electronic operators, and poker games operators. Said suspension is from 16 March 2020 until the midnight of 14 April 2020 or until the government declares COVID-19 situation either under control or for extended community quarantine. With this, there will be no income from our eCasino operations for the period of the suspension.
In light of this, Management has decided to take the following steps:
1.The implementation of a Special Telecommuting Policy to achieve several objectives with several checks in place:
a. Employees are allowed to work from home to ensure proper social distancing. The health and safety of our employees remain to be our number one priority.
b. Steps are taken to ensure that all employees working from home are with proper security permissions to safeguard all confidential data.
2. Additional drastic cost-cutting measures will be taken to meet our 2020 year-end targets.
3. DFNN’s strategy to ensure that we have a balanced portfolio of different business streams is still on track to mitigate scenarios such as the current COVID-19 outbreak. This is to ensure there is business continuity along the value chain in the eCasino segment for our business partners.
4. We are in constant dialogue sessions with the legislators and regulators as we are continuously conducting scenario planning discussions to align with the government’s objective of combating COVID-19, and understand and generate proper resources to combat the said virus.
However, one can only be so prepared for a pandemic situation such as this.
For those of you who have been with DFNN since its inception, you would have witnessed how we faced adverse scenarios in the past that led to the emergence of DFNN to what it is today. With that, I would like to call for your similar unwavering support and understanding as this situation is only temporary. Once this storm is over, I am confident that DFNN will rise up from this and will emerge stronger than ever.
Truly yours,
Calvin Lim
President and CEO
