The entire Board of Directors at Swinton Group Limited has been sacked for putting “their short term interests ahead of the long term interests of the company and its employees.” The decision was made by the board at Swinton’s parent company, Covea.
Covea said in a statement that it had lost confidence in the executive board, and that a key factor in the decision was the executive board’s performance-related share scheme payments, due to have been made in the first quarter of 2012.
They said that as the shareholder, Covea had a “responsibility to protect Swinton and to take appropriate action where it identifies any circumstances not beneficial to the business as a whole.”
The new executive board consists of Christophe Bardet as CEO, Charles Bellringer as Financial Director, Rob Hornby as IT Director and Kelly Ogley who will be appointed Operations Director as previously planned.
In his first public statement as Swinton CEO, Bardet said, “We are committed to ensuring that this course of action has minimal impact on our staff, customers and insurers. There will be no change to our values, products, business model and distribution, as Swinton remains a healthy and profitable company.”
The changes are effective immediately.
