Sinclair (William) Holdings PLC Board Changes and Trading Update (5874G)

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RNS Number : 5874G

Sinclair (William) Holdings PLC

05 March 2015

WILLIAM SINCLAIR HOLDINGS PLC

("William Sinclair", the "Company" or the "Group")

Board Changes and Trading Update

William Sinclair announces the departure of its Chief Executive, appointment of a new Interim Chief Executive, the launch of a transformation programme, and a poor start to the season.

William Sinclair today announces the departure of Peter Rush as Chief Executive and the appointment of Stuart Burgin, 52, as Chief Executive, with immediate effect initially on an interim basis. Stuart is expected to join the Board of the Company in due course.

Peter has worked for the business for 2 years in challenging circumstances and has worked tirelessly to get Ellesmere Port up and running, and to refocus the Company's commercial offering for which the Board would like to register its thanks.

Stuart has a career predominantly in the food industry originally at RHM and Robert McBride and subsequently at Oscar Mayer. He has been the CEO and Managing Director of a number of businesses, and a constant theme in his career has been his strong leadership skills. He is a member of the Institute for Turnaround and has considerable experience in transformation programmes.

William Sinclair has had a difficult season so far. While some progress has been made in the ramp up of production, we are not as well developed as we had expected to be at this stage. We have also seen a slow start to the season with sales to retail and professional customers below last year. There has been margin pressure in both professional and retail sectors. Consequently the Board expects that the result for the year on an underlying basis will be materially worse than last year.

In the light of this the Board has launched a transformation programme that will be developed over the coming weeks but which has already identified and introduced certain action plans. Stuart who has been involved to date in the development of the transformation programme will now lead its further development and implementation, supported by additional experienced manufacturing and business transformation resource that has recently joined the business. Given the strengthening of the resource and the action plans already put in place we are committed to meeting the needs of our retail and professional customers through the peak selling season.

It is our intention to update shareholders on the transformation plan before the end of April. We anticipate that we will by then have a detailed plan to return William Sinclair to sustained profitability and that we will have begun to deliver against the plan.

Appointment of Non-Executive Director

The Company also announces today the appointment of Hugh Cawley, 58, to the Board as Non-Executive Director with immediate effect. Hugh, a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute for Turnaround, has specialised for some years in helping listed and private businesses improve their performance, including latterly Dawson Holdings plc and office2office plc.

The following information is disclosed pursuant to Schedule Two paragraph (g) of the AIM Rules for Companies. Hugh is currently the director of More Hours Limited and has also been the director of the following companies in the five years preceding this announcement:

 
 Access Plus Holdings Limited          Dawson Media Direct Inc 
 Access Plus Limited                   Dawson Media Direct Limited 
 Access Plus Marketing Logistics       Dawson Media Direct NV 
  Limited 
 Access Plus Marketing Services        Dawson Media Direct SAS 
  Limited 
 Access Plus Print Management          Erasmus Antiquariaat en 
  Limited                               Boekhandel BB 
 Accord Office Supplies Limited        Erasmus Buchhandlung GmbH 
 Adversion Limited                     Esp2office Limited 
 Alpha Data Supplies Limited           File-It Limited 
 Alpha Litho Limited                   First2office Limited 
 Alpha Office Limited                  GL2 Limited 
 Alpha Stationers Limited              Godfrey Lang Limited 
 Banner Business Services Limited      Houtschild Internacionale 
                                        Boekhanel BV 
 Banner Business Supplies (Pensions)   Image2office Limited 
  Limited 
 Banner Business Supplies Limited      office2office plc 
 Banner Document Services Limited      office2office (UK) Plc 
 Banner Managed Communication          Olive 1 Limited 
  Limited 
 Banner Managed Solutions Limited      Phantom Media Limited 
 Colebrook Services Limited            Royal Academy Enterprises 
                                        Limited 
 Dawson Books Limited                  Software Stationery Holdings 
                                        Limited 
 Dawson Espana Agencia de Ediciones    Software Stationery Specialists 
                                        Limited 
 Dawson France SAS                     Surridge Dawson Limited 
 Dawson Media Direct China Limited     TripleArc Limited 
 Dawson Media Direct GmbH              TripleArc UK Limited 
 Dawson Media Direct Iberica           Truline Logistics Limited 
  SL 
 

Hugh was a director of Surridge Dawson Limited which went into administration on 6 August 2009 following the Office of Fair Trading Opinion which saw competition in newspaper and magazine distribution reduce from three national players to two.

There are no further disclosures required in accordance with the AIM Rules.

For further information:

   William Sinclair Holdings PLC                        Tel:  [phone] 

Rupert King, Chairman

WH Ireland Limited

   Andrew Kitchingman                                         Tel:  [phone] 

Paul Shackleton

Liam Gribben

This information is provided by RNS

The company news service from the London Stock Exchange

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