14th Mar 2007 07:04
Informa PLC14 March 2007 Informa plc Board Changes 14 March 2007 Informa plc ("Informa" or the "Group") announces the appointmentof Peter Rigby as Chairman and David Gilbertson as Chief Executive as from theAGM on May 15th 2007. The Board of Informa announces that it is to appoint Peter Rigby as Chairmansucceeding Richard Hooper, who is to retire from the Informa Board. At Informa's inception upon the merger of IBC and LLP in 1998 Peter Rigby becameChairman. He then became Chief Executive upon the merger of Informa with Taylor& Francis in May 2004. David Gilbertson will become Chief Executive. Upon the Group's inception in 1998David became its Chief Executive and was appointed Managing Director upon themerger with Taylor & Francis in 2004. Richard Hooper was appointed Senior Non-Executive Director of Informa in 1998and has been its Non-Executive Chairman since March 2005. The Board has agreed to appoint a fifth Non-Executive Director to the Board.Details of the appointee to that role will be made in due course. As required by the UK Combined Code on Corporate Governance, the appointment ofPeter Rigby as Chairman has been discussed in advance with the Group's sixlargest shareholders. In reaching this decision, the Board considered inparticular the complexity of the Group's global operations, the need formanagement stability at the top of the Group following three years offundamental changes, and the long-term partnership and proven complementaryleadership provided by Peter Rigby and David Gilbertson since 1998. In addition, the Board has resolved to make certain governance changes whichinclude annual re-election of all Directors from this year's AGM and theenhancement of the role of the Senior Independent Director, Derek Mapp. Thiswill include Derek Mapp having his own reporting section in the Annual Report,beginning with the 2007 Annual Report. Richard Hooper stated: "It has been a pleasure and an honour to serve Informa over the last nine and ahalf years in the roles of non-executive director, senior independent directorand chairman. During that time the company has grown from a marketcapitalisation of £137m (LLP) to £2.5bn today. We have successfully achieved twolarge nil premium mergers and one transforming acquisition during that time. Myboard colleagues and I have been working on my succession for over a year and Iam delighted to be handing over at the AGM in May to Peter Rigby, with DavidGilbertson becoming CEO. I know from close observation over many years howcrucial the partnership of Peter and David has been to the success of Informa.This succession plan announced today cements that partnership going forward intothe next exciting phase of Informa's growth and development". Peter Rigby said: "We will be sorry to see Richard depart. His support and advice through a periodof extraordinary growth and corporate activity over the years has beenenormously valuable. We have moved from being a small company to a big companyover a short period of time whilst retaining the small company focus which hasmade us successful. I am honoured to be succeeding Richard and I look forward tosteering the company to further success." For further enquiries: Informa plcSusanna Kempe, Chief Marketing Officer Tel: 020 7017 5000 MaitlandWilliam Clutterbuck Tel: 020 7379 5151Emma Burdett Notes to Editors Informa provides specialist, high value information to the global academic &scientific, professional, and commercial markets via publishing, events andperformance improvement. At the heart of every Informa product and service isresearch-based, proprietary information for an expert audience. Informapublishes over 2,000 subscription products and services delivered electronicallyand in hardcopy, and (45,000) books. Each year Informa produces over 10,000events around the world, powered by a marketing database of over 20 millioncontacts. Informa's brands include Lloyd's List, Routledge, Taylor & Francis,IIR, IBC, AchieveGlobal, ESI and Euroforum. Informa operates in over 70countries, and employs over 7,500 people. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
Informa