Pandora A/S chief executive Anders Colding Friis is to step down after the world’s biggest jewelry maker this week lost almost a quarter of its market value following a profit warning.
Colding Friis, 54, is to leave as of Aug. 31.
The Copenhagen-based company has started a search for a replacement, while it also hired former Body Shop CEO Jeremy Schwartz as chief operating officer. The shares rose more than 10 percent in early trading.
Struggling to keep up growth after a rapid global expansion, Pandora on Monday lowered its outlook for this year’s profit and sales, sending shares down 24 percent and sparking speculation about whether Friis would be able to keep his job.
The company yesterday said that it is beset by a range of problems, including weaker-than-expected sales of new charm bracelets and rising costs.
Friis at the start of the year sought to reset the company’s targets, seeking more “realistic” goals as its expansion slows.
While he yesterday said that he had been “a bit too optimistic,” he added that he still believes in the strategy he had laid out for Pandora.
“I don’t have a lot of regrets when it comes to the things we’ve done together at Pandora,” he said in a Bloomberg TV interview.
Friis’ departure would probably “be taken positively by the market as many eagerly awaited a reshuffle in Pandora’s management team,” Berenberg analyst Zuzanna Puszsaid in a note.
The company on Monday said that it expected sales to grow 4 to 7 percent in local currencies, down from a forecast of 7 to 10 percent.
It said that its profit margin on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization would be about 32 percent, down from a prediction of 35 percent.
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