Two members that represent Genting Hong Kong in the board of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) have resigned, Genting Hong Kong said in a statement.
"The board of directors of Genting Hong Kong Limited announces that its nominees serving as directors of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd., namely Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay (the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Acting- President and an executive director of the Company) and Mr. David Chua Ming Huat, resigned from the board of NCLH with effect from 3 March 2015, respectively," Genting said in a statement.
"Two replacement directors have been nominated by the Company to the board of NCLH and are expected to be appointed in due course," the company continued.
The resignations came a day after Genting Hong Kong had acquired Crystal Cruises, the Los Angeles based luxury cruise brand from Tokyo based Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) group. Crystal could be viewed as c competitor of Regent Seven Seas Cruises, which NCLH acquired last year, together with Oceania Cruises, in a $3.025 billion deal.
Commenting on Genting Hong Kong's position as shareholder of NCLH, Robin Farley, cruise industry analyst at UBS in New York said: "We had written last week about overhang of NCLH largest (25-26%) shareholder Genting HK having filed last year for HK shareholder approval to sell its stake in NCLH. That approval will expire in May, but we noted last week that Genting may renew the approval for another year."
"NCLH has authorized $500 million in repo last year but we believe balance sheet constraints make it unlikely before 2H this year, so perhaps a selling shareholder would want to wait till 2H if NCLH could then buy a block. We view this as a positive for the stock that any block share sale may be pushed further out," she said in a research note.
