The phrase “stepped down with immediate effect” is used by companies to announce the instant departure of a director. It usually simply means they have been fired. It is of course frequently bad news as it often follows past uninspiring events and it means that the company has to scratch around for a replacement or ask another director to step into the breach.
This week I saw such announcements on a couple of my holdings. The first was Diploma Plc (DPLM) where the CEO Richard Ingram was the victim. The announcement also said “the Board believes that a change in the CEO is in the best interests of the Company and its shareholders”. The surprising aspect here was the Mr Ingram had only joined the company a few months ago and the trading announcement issued on the same day was positive. Mr Ingram had been recruited to replace long-serving CEO Bruce Thompson who retires at the end of September. Clearly the recruitment process seems to have failed but there is always a high chance of failure when recruiting a senior position from outside. John Nicholas, the Chairman, is taking over on an interim basis rather than Mr Thompson. Better to admit a mistake sooner rather than later.
The share price initially dipped on the morning of the announcement, but then rose as much as 4% during the day. Clearly some investors saw it as good news.
This morning there was a similar announcement this morning from IDOX (IDOX). Long-serving CFO Jane Mackie has resigned and leaves the board with immediate effect. That’s perhaps not greatly surprising as she was the CFO in the period when IDOX had to back-track on some rather aggressive revenue recognition practices. A new CEO has recently been appointed so a change in CFO was not surprising. However Ms Mackie is not actually leaving the company until February 2019 which certainly gives the company plenty of time to find a replacement.
The share price of IDOX has fallen by 1.8% today at the time of writing, but I rather judge this as positive news so it might recover I suspect in due course unless there is other news announced. The departure of a finance director sometimes means they have just given some unexpected bad news to the board. I do recall in my early career to suddenly finding my finance director boss was departing for that very reason after a stormy board meeting. He was rather easy going so it was great to be junior to him, but that character defect did not impress the board.
Let us hope that is not the situation at IDOX.
It is unfortunate for investors that such announcements tend to be somewhat cryptic in nature. Often a “settlement agreement” with the departing individual has yet to be proposed or agreed so they don’t want to prejudice the legal negotiations by saying more. But of course they might well inform their major investors while private investors are left guessing.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.
© Copyright. Disclaimer: Read the About page before relying on any information in this post.