Singapore-headquartered tech firm Sea Ltd.’s top management will forgo their salaries and tighten company expense policies, as the gaming and e-commerce giant tries to shield itself from the economic slowdown, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
“The leadership team has decided that we will not take any cash compensation until the company reaches self-sufficiency,” Chief Executive Officer Forrest Li said in an internal memo sent to staff Thursday, according to the report. This also comes after Sea shut down operations in some markets and trimmed staff across its divisions. “We can now see that this is not a quickly passing storm: these negative conditions will likely persist into the medium term.”
“With investors fleeing for ‘safe haven’ investments, we do not anticipate being able to raise funds in the market,” Li said, reiterating that the company’s main objective for the next 12 to 18 months is to achieve positive cash flow as soon as possible.
In his 1000-word missive, seen by Bloomberg, Li also addressed head-on the struggle for the company in an era of rising interest rates, accelerating inflation and a volatile market. Sea has lost about $170 billion of market value since an October high amid a global decline in tech counters.
“The only way for us to free ourselves from relying on external capital is to become self-sufficient, generating enough cash for all our own needs and projects,” Li said.
Quoting people close to the matter, Reuters reported last week that Sea’s e-commerce arm Shopee will exit Argentina and shut local operations in Chile, Colombia and Mexico while its Garena gaming unit will lay off hundreds of staff in Shanghai.
Last month, Sea announced that its net loss in the second quarter has widened to $931.2 million from $433.7 million a year ago. Its total adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization for the quarter also climbed to $506.3 million from $24.1 million for the second quarter of 2021. Total revenue increased by 29 percent to $2.9 billion in the second quarter from $2.3 billion in the second quarter of 2021.
In its efforts to adapt to increasing macro uncertainties, Sea said it is proactively shifting its strategies to further focus on efficiency and optimization for the long-term strength and profitability of the e-commerce business.