Nufarm CEO ends 15 years at the top
NUFARM’S veteran chief executive, Doug Rathbone, has stepped down after more than four decades with the crop spray maker and seeds supplier.
His exit comes as the agribusiness prepares to slash A$100 million in costs, but it is yet to confirm if jobs could go.
Rathbone has run Nufarm, formerly New Zealand’s Fernz Corporation, since 1999, and oversaw a significant rise in its share price in his first decade in the role.
But Nufarm’s market value fell sharply during the global financial crisis and has since failed to return to its 2008 levels.
Rathbone made the BRW richlist in 2012 with an estimated wealth of $215m, and will get a termination payout of $1.6m from Nufarm, ending an association with the company that began in 1973.
‘‘Doug and the board have agreed that now is the right time to make a change to new leadership,’’ chairman Donald McGauchie said.
Nufarm’s group executive for commercial operations, Greg Hunt, has been appointed acting chief executive while a global search gets underway for a permanent replacement.
McGauchie said Nufarm would pursue a $100m cost reduction programme, but the company has so far offered no more detail on how that will be achieved.
Dry weather across most of Australia affected its early sales in the 2014-15 year, and the company has been restructuring its Australian business to cope with seasonal fluctuations.
The company employs 3500 people globally, and sells crop protection and seed products to farmers around the world.
Last year Nufarm announced that up to 59 jobs would go when it closed its Otahuhu plant in Auckland over a two-year period.