Chief operating officer leaving Boyd Gaming, won’t be replaced

A top executive at Boyd Gaming is leaving the casino company and will not immediately be replaced.

Boyd, based in Las Vegas, announced today the departure of Chief Operating Officer Paul Chakmak, effective Sept. 19. Instead of naming a replacement, the company said in a statement that CEO Keith Smith will take over his duties.

Smith said in the statement that Chakmak, who joined the company in 2004, “helped strengthen our financial organization” when he was chief financial officer and helped guide the company through a “period of significant expansion” in his most recent position.

But Smith implied that taking over Chakmak’s responsibilities made sense for the business.

“Given today’s operating environment, we believe that more direct oversight and a streamlined decision-making process will position us to improve our operating performance going forward and allow us to execute our growth strategy more quickly and effectively,” Smith said.

Boyd spokesman David Strow said the company is “focused on improving the performance of our operations” and that Chakmak and Boyd are “simply moving in different directions.”

Boyd owns 22 casinos across the country. Nine of those are in the Las Vegas area, including the Orleans, Gold Coast, California, Fremont and Main Street Station.

This is not the first big change in senior leadership at Boyd this year.

In July, the company promoted a senior vice president to the new position of chief marketing officer, elevated two executives to senior vice presidents of operations and gave more responsibilities to its senior vice president of operations in the Midwest.

All four of those executives reported to Chakmak. After his departure, they will report to Smith.

Boyd had a relatively weak performance in the most recent quarter. The company reported net revenues of $722.5 million, a decline of about 2.2 percent from the same quarter in 2013.

In today’s statement, Boyd emphasized that it still expects adjusted earnings of $580 million to $600 million for the year.

Gaming

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