SHARES in John Menzies were down more than seven per cent in early trading after the aviation services company announced it had party company with chief executive Forsyth Black.
The company, now fully focused on aviation following the disposal of its distribution business for £74.5 million last year, said Mr Black had stepped down with immediate effect. It brings to a close Mr Black’s 19-year association with Menzies, during which the company said he has overseen the revival of Menzies distribution and transformed Menzies aviation in the last three years.
Mr Black has been replaced on an interim basis by Giles Wilson, Menzies’ chief financial officer.
Menzies chairman Dermot Smurfit said: “We would like to thank Forsyth for his dedication to the Group for the past 19 years and we wish him all the best for the future.
“Led by Giles, we are confident that the strong and experienced team we have in place will move the business forward in the short term. Simultaneously the Board will immediately undertake a thorough search for a new CEO, both internally and externally.”
Menzies this morning reported an underlying profit before tax from continuing operations of £44.1 million, up from £42.3m.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here