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Staff Reporter
The managing director and CEO of Elders Limited has stepped down from his role, in a unanimous decision following a period of challenges for the struggling business.
While Malcolm Jackman and the board of Elders Limited had discussed plans for his retirement from the company for early next year, the decision to bring it forward was reached after discussions that took place over the last week.
A formal executive search for a successor to Mr Jackman is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2014 and will include internal and external candidates.
Elders chairman Mark Allison, who will chair the company’s executive committee, said: “The restructure and refocusing of Elders on its core rural services business and markets is now in its very final stages and is on track for completion in early 2014, so this is an appropriate time for Malcolm to step down.
“On behalf of the board, I extend our sincere thanks and respect to Malcolm for his leadership and commitment to the company over the five years since he was appointed as CEO in September 2008.
“Despite some of the worst ever global economic and market events, and repetitive seasonal conditions during that time, under Malcolm’s leadership Elders has all but completed the challenge of restructuring itself from a complex conglomerate with far too much debt to return to its core strengths in rural services.”
Mr Allison added that Elders was now a much simpler, more efficient operation with a clear focus on its core rural services, skills, brand and customer network.
Mr Jackman said, “It has undoubtedly been a very difficult and challenging journey to restructure Elders and to return it to its core business focus, but we are very confident that objective has all but been attained. As a result, I have agreed with the board that this is an appropriate time to step down and to focus on other emerging business opportunities.
“I extend my sincere thanks to the leadership team, Elders staff, agents and our loyal customers for their support, energy and faith in this great company over these last five years of change for the better.”
In September, Elders’ group general manager David Goodfellow told Real Estate Business the restructuring of Elders would have no negative impact on the business.
“It’s really just returning Elders to a business that is highly profitable again, and the benefits of that are we’ll continue to retain and attract good people as we move forward,” he said.
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