Adamson replaces Fletcher Building CEO Ling
Fletcher Building chief executive Jonathan Ling will resign on September 30 and return to Australia.
He will be replaced on October 1 by Mark Adamson, chief executive of Fletcher's Laminates & Panels division.
Chartered accountant Mr Adamson, who joined Fletchers in 2007, will become CEO and managing director of the country's largest listed company.
The appointment follows a global search for a new CEO after Mr Ling said he wanted to retire after six years in the job, the Auckland-based company said.
Mr Adamson was the unanimous choice of the board, which was “impressed with what he had achieved in his current role and the vision he has for Fletcher Building”, chairman Ralph Waters said.
Under Ling, the company made acquisitions including Formica and Australian pipe manufacturer and distributor Crane which doubled the size of the business.
Its shares have shed about a third of their value under Ling’s watch, having peaked in 2007 before tumbling with the global financial crisis and local recession in 2008.
Much hope for earnings growth has been loaded onto the rebuild of Christchurch, where Fletcher is overseeing the reconstruction efforts on behalf of the government.
Mr Adamson will be the second CEO to come via the laminates and panels business, which Mr Ling had headed before his appointment to the top job in 2006.
Mr Adamson is a 46-year-old Briton who joined Formica in 2000. He is based at the Formica headquarters in Cincinnati in the US.
His pay will be $1.5 million and he will receive two tranches of 500,000 share options, granted three years apart, Fletcher said.
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Comments and questions10
At long last
Not the best decision maker when it comes to doing deals
Take a good company, add on ego-driven acquisitions, and leave the company in a poorer state than where it was before. Hugh Fletcher did that when he was CEO - twice!
Ralph Waters did a great job resuscitating the remnant Building operations and added on well thought through and well executed acquisitions. Then, the inevitable growth for growth sake's driven acquisitions - Laminex and Crane are both causing Fletcher Building headaches. So unnecessary.
Just had a quick glance at the exec team here...just noticed not one has an engineering degree. Would it not be prudent to have some people who actually qualified in civil engineering in the exec team??? After all that is what they do!
When the pens control the place, it only works if it's a monopoly.
In fact, two members of the FB exec team have engineering degrees and are professional engineers: Graham Darlow, Chief Executive of the Engineering Division is a civil engineer and Mark Malpass, Chief Executive of the Concrete Division is a mechanical engineer. Graham's company bio reports that he is a Fellow and Deputy President of the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand and a Fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineers (UK). This suggests that there's no shortage of professional expertise on the construction side!
Perhaps now a new leader can actually lead the company forward rather than procrastinating. Ling spent all of his time cutting costs rather than growing the business. I wonder if the board now rues losing Mark Binns a quality NZ leader.
This is very sudden. It looks like he was pushed.
It is sudden. Adamson has been in his current position for less than a year, as have the divisional heads of building products, concrete and engineering. The divisional head of Crane has about 15 months service in that role - and Adamson seemed to be fixing the job that he'd left. Placemakers is not looking too flash either. Ralph Waters talks of Ling leaving a strong management heritage. This has still to be shown.
It's not a great sign that again a major NZ company has not been able to groom a New Zealander from within the business to take the helm. Ling, an Australian outsider, is now being replaced by an Englishman who's never lived in NZ and comes from one of their American subsidiaries. It's the same story with Telecom (a Scotsman from BT) and Westpac (an Aussie from HQ). Not a good look.
Who Ralphie wants, Ralphie gets.