Shares in Waterford Wedgwood slumped on Friday morning after chief financial officer Paul D'Alton has resigned from the company. He is leaving the company to become chief financial officer at AgCert International.
D'Alton has been less than a year in the CFO role, having joined in May of last year following the departure of Richard Barnes, who had held the job for over ten years. D'Alton had been a former chief financial officer at both Bank of Ireland and Aer Lingus before he took the Waterford job.
Patrick Dowling, currently Waterford Wedgwood's company secretary, takes over as Acting Chief Financial Officer with immediate effect. He has been company secretary since 1999 and was previously finance director at Fitzwilton. He also worked for Bank of Chicago and Citibank.
'Paul played an important and constructive role at Waterford Wedgwood, but has now been offered an exciting new opportunity,' commented Redmond O'Donoghue, Waterford Wedgwood's CEO.
'Patrick Dowling brings considerable banking and public company experience and is a most able replacement,' he added.
AgCert is a leading global greenhouse gas emission reduction creation company.
Waterford Wedgwood is currently experiencing difficult trading in the US, which is its major market. It is also suffering because of the weak dollar against the euro.
Shares in Waterford Wedgwood closed down 6% to 4.4 cent in Dublin on Friday. They had slumped as much as 36% earlier this morning.
