Thomas Cook Hit by CEO Departure

British leisure travel company Thomas Cook's chief executive Harriet Green has been replaced by its chief operating officer Peter Fankhauser.

Shares in the world's oldest travel company fell on news that Green was leaving plus a warning from the company that growth would slow to "a more moderate pace" in 2015, to reflect a tougher trading environment.

Green, who joined Thomas Cook in 2012, will be replaced by Fankhauser with immediate effect. Numis analyst Wyn Ellis said the market was reacting with justifiable skepticism to the timing of Green's departure.

"After all the hype the transformation of Thomas Cook is far from complete. The timing is unfortunate especially as the trading environment appears to be deteriorating," he said.

Seeking to explain Green's departure, Thomas Cook's chairman Frank Meysman said that her remit had been to overhaul the firm and that it was always his plan to bring in a new chief executive at some stage in the process.

"We now move to a new phase where the implementation of that strategy is becoming the more important part, and therefore we feel it is time to move to somebody who has been groomed as a CEO who comes from the industry."

Green, formerly chief executive of electronics company Premier Farnell, once told a newspaper that she had landed the top job at Thomas Cook by approaching the chairman and telling him "I think you need me".

Meysman said he didn't think Green had another job lined yet, but her statement in the company's press release implied otherwise.

"I always said that I would move on to another company with fresh challenges once my work was complete. That time is now," she said in the statement.

Green has led the company's revival, bringing debt under control and reporting strong growth in profits. Job cuts, store closures and a series of disposals to cut debt have underpinned Green's strategy of lowering costs and improving profit by GBP£500 million between 2012 and 2015.

That represents a recovery from a dramatic slump in 2011, when the firm was hit by the euro zone debt crisis, high fuel costs and political turmoil in popular leisure destinations such as Greece, Egypt and Tunisia.

Announcing full-year results also on Wednesday, the company reported a 44 percent jump in earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to GBP£323 million (USD$507.4 million) for the year ended September.

Source: Reuters