Last week it was AGL revealing the shock departure of its CEO. Today, Sigma Healthcare made the surprise announcement that CEO Mark Hooper will go after more than 10 years in the role.
Sigma owns a range of pharmacy brands including Amcal and Guardian as well as operating a wholesale business which supplies fast moving consumer goods to the likes of Chemist Warehouse as well as a growing business supply hospitals.
Mr Hooper started in the role in 2010 after Sigma ran into various problems and has overseen a large restructure and cost-cutting program, called Project Pivot.
He was saw the surprise loss of its supply agreement with Chemist Warehouse and then did an equally surprising new deal to replace that lost revenue with Chemist Warehouse covering fast moving consumer products in 2019.
Sigma chair Ray Gunston said on Monday he regrettably had accepted Hooper’s resignation, saying the company understood his desire to pursue other opportunities after a decade.
Mr Hooper said in Monday’s statement that he’d made the decision because “the business is now in great shape” and it was an ideal time to hand leadership over to a new CEO.
The shares closed at 69 cents on Friday and have gained 12% so far this year.
A month ago Mr Hopper revealed that Sigma was returning to paying dividends for the first time since late 2019 after beating its owned higher guidance for the year to the end of January.
Sigma Healthcare reported a $59 million net profit after tax for the year to January, much better than the $12.3 million loss for 2019-20.
The chemist retailer, distributor and medicines producer reported underlying earnings of $81.1 million, ahead of the $80 million the company was forecasting at the start of this year.
As an essential service, the company said it was able to continue operations through lockdowns without JobKeeper and even saw like-for-like growth of 9% across its key pharmacy brands.
Revenues rose 4.8% to $3.4 billion for the year to January.
The company said it had lifted sales into hospitals by 15% over the past year, taking advantage of a medical consumables acquisition to sell more PPE across the country during the peak of demand in the lockdowns in 2020.
In his statement in late March, Hooper said “Having targeted $100m Underlying EBITDA by FY23, we now approach that milestone with far greater confidence.
“We also sharpen our focus on business development to accelerate our expansion businesses, including in the medical consumables and devices space,” he added.
Not a hint of any desire to exit his role.
