Royal Caribbean promotes CFO Rice to vice chairman

MIAMI (AP) -- Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. has added the vice chairman role to Chief Financial Officer Brian Rice's duties.

The cruise operator — whose brands include Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and others — said Tuesday that Rice will continue to oversee the Miami company's finance function, but will also now have responsibility for the supply chain department. Rice will also concentrate more on strategic issues.

Rice has held a variety of positions at Royal Caribbean during his more than 20 years with the company.

He will continue to report to Chairman and CEO Richard Fain.

Royal Caribbean also announced that it promoted Jason Liberty to senior vice president of strategy and finance. He most recently served as vice president of corporate, revenue planning and insurance. He will now oversee the company's strategic planning, corporate planning, investor relations, deployment and treasury functions.

Liberty will still report to Rice.

In some other personnel moves, Royal Caribbean named Lisa Bauer as executive vice president of global sales and marketing and Lisa Lutoff-Perlo as executive vice president of operations.

Both will continue to report to the president and CEO of Royal Caribbean International, Adam Goldstein.

Also on Tuesday, rival Carnival Corp. reported that its third-quarter earnings were essentially flat. Its performance beat Wall Street's expectations, and its shares hit their highest level in more than a year.

Shares of Royal Caribbean rose $1.08, or 3.6 percent, to $31.50 in morning trading. The stock hit a 52-week high of $31.97 earlier in the session.