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PeopleNew chairman for beleaguered Torex Retail
Torex Retail, the healthcare IT group under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), has appointed Steve Marshall as its non-executive chairman. Marshall is former chief executive of both Railtrack and Thorn, and currently chairman of Delta, the engineering company.
Torex’s previous chairman, Chris Moore, stood aside in the wake of the company issuing a profits warning and suspending its shares. At the time it announced the suspension, Torex also revealed that as a result of contracts being deferred from 2006 to 2007, its borrowings at the end of the year were around £23m higher than expected. However, the company has now been offered a lifeline by a syndicate of banks that has agreed to provide a short-term working capital facility of £15m.
Meanwhile, Mark Woodbridge resigned as a non-executive director of Ascribe, the healthcare IT group, following press reports linking him to the SFO’s investigation into Torex Retail. Woodbridge also resigned as finance director of AT Communications, though the company stated this had already been planned to coincide with the second anniversary of its listing.
Woodbridge was finance director at the original Torex before its merger with iSoft. He subsequently became a director of iSoft but resigned in October 2004. Woodbridge reportedly remained linked to Moore, who led the original Torex but resigned from iSoft after being overlooked as chief executive following the merger.
Moore joined Torex Retail, initially as deputy chairman, in November 2004. These two, along with former executive chairman of Torex Retail, Rob Loosemore, are reportedly at the centre of the SFO's probe.
Torex subsequently lost two non-executive directors, Geoffrey Forster and David Hallett.
Lombard in the Financial Times (8 February) said that the Torex case had exposed one problem for AIM companies: the paucity of qualified non-executive directors. The resignations of former Torex directors from other company boards showed that companies still rely heavily on a network of cross-recommendations to fill board positions, Lombard said.
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March 2007 |
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