The new CEO emphasizes the reforms to PureCircle management.
The stevia-based sweetener manufacturer PureCircle changed its leadership a few times in 2019 after disclosing anomalous financial results and losing both its chief financial officer and chief executive officer.
As of March 2, Peter Lai Hock Meng will take over as chief executive officer. With immediate effect, Stephane Ducroux takes over as deputy chief executive officer. Jimmy Lim On February 4, Kian Thong will take over as chief financial officer.
The London Stock Exchange suspended trading of PureCircle’s stock on September 20, 2019, due to discrepancies in the company’s financial filings. The business is still not allowed to trade.
From June 2008 until March 2017, Mr. Lai served as a non-executive director of PureCircle, a company based in Chicago. He currently chairs PureCircle’s two Chinese businesses and advises the PureCircle Board on China-related matters. He started out with the Monetary Authority of Singapore and went on to work for a number of banking companies, such as Morgan Grenfell Asia & Partners Securities, SocGen Crosby Securities, Citigroup Private Bank, and OCBC Private Bank, holding high managerial roles.
After joining PureCircle in 2018, Mr. Ducroux has experience in technical and innovative fields, scientific and regulatory affairs, and sales and marketing. He has managed natural specialty ingredients for more than 20 years. He was previously Naturex’s chief operating officer for the Americas and Asia-Pacific.
Mr. Lim was the chief executive officer and executive director of Haitong International Securities before joining the company. He has over 27 years of expertise in financial and operational management. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the National University of Singapore and a master’s degree in business administration from Nanyang Technological University of Singapore’s Nanyang Business School.
John Slosar, chairman and interim chief executive officer of PureCircle, stated on January 28 that “both Peter and Stephane have an intimate understanding of the PureCircle business, our valued customer base, and the global market opportunity for stevia as a natural sweetener and replacement for sugar.” “I am confident that we have a strong and experienced executive team with the right skillset to drive future growth and generate significant value from the market-leading intellectual property (I.P.) we have created and own, along with Jimmy as our incoming CFO and our leaders in operations and R&D.”
He also mentioned that the company audit is almost finished.On September 20, 2019, PureCircle revealed that there might be a problem with the valuation and classification of inventory that has a combined worth of up to $30 million.which had been identified during an audit of financial statements. The company said it would be unable to publish full-year audited results within four months of the year’s fiscal end (June 30, 2019). PureCircle’s trading status on the London Stock Exchange was suspended on Oct. 28, 2019.
KPMG L.L.P. was chosen by the business to look into the discrepancies in the financial reporting. According to KPMG, the problems could result in a relatively small adjustment for 2017 and a cumulative effect of inventory reduction of around $23 million, which would raise cost of goods sold by the same amount over the course of the financial years 2018 and 2019.
additional issues about how additional transactions were put together and/or shown in the business’s accounting records were discovered through the efforts of PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG. A few of the issues suggested possible improper behavior. At that point, PureCircle and its advisors started looking into the issues.
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As chief executive officer, Magomet Malsagov resigned voluntarily in November. In November, the CFO at the time, Rakesh Sinha, also quit. He had earlier informed the board of directors of PureCircle that he intended to go back to the UK.
The board of directors of PureCircle, as well as its nomination, audit, and compensation committees, underwent additional alterations.Since its founding in 2002, PureCircle has received approximately 214 patents pertaining to stevia. Using extracts from stevia plants, natural high-intensity sweeteners with no calories are produced.