NUFARM chief executive and managing director Doug Rathbone has stepped down and a search is already underway for his replacement, says chairman Don McGauchie.
Mr Rathbone had led the company for 15 years. He will receive a termination payment of $1,643,193 plus statutory entitlements.
Rumours of Mr Rathbone's departure from the crop protection group started circulating this morning after the company entered a trading halt pending management changes.
Greg Hunt, group executive for commercial operations, has been appointed chief operating officer and will be acting CEO.
One source suggested to the The Australian Financial Review there had been talk of a falling out between Mr Rathbone and Mr McGauchie.
However, Mr McGauchie had only praise for Mr Rathbone in an announcement released to the ASX today.
"Doug has shown enormous commitment to the company for the past 41 years ... he has helped build the company from a regional agrichemical business into a global leader," he said.
"Doug and the board have agreed that now is the right time to make a change to new leadership (and) we wish him all the best."
Mr Rathbone was appointed managing director of Nufarm Australia in 1982 and became managing director of Nufarm Limited in 1999.
He owns around 1.3 per cent of Nufarm, down from over 18 per cent a decade ago.
In February last year Mr Rathbone sold $31 million worth of Nufarm stock to shore up his family wine business, which was under pressure from financier ANZ Bank.
He is understood to have sold more than $200 million of Nufarm stock since 2008.
Mr Rathbone said he was pleased to be leaving Nufarm with the company on a sound financial footing.
"In recent years, Nufarm has expanded and diversified to protect against cyclical forces and the company is now on a growth path with our wonderful team of 3500 people around the world," Mr Rathbone said.
"I am very proud of what we have achieved at Nufarm and the time has now come for me to concentrate on some of my other passions."
Nufarm's share price - with a 12-month range of $3.77 to $6.12 - was hovering above $6.00 today, up from around $4.40 in early December.
Last September, Nufarm reported a 53 per cent drop in full-year statutory profit after tax to $37.7 million, after restructuring charges from the overhaul of Nufarm's Australia and New Zealand businesses hit the bottom line.
Today Mr McGauchie reiterated the company's "aggressive" plan to rein in costs, announcing a $100 million cost reduction program alongside a separate program to reduce working capital.
In the past two years Nufarm's earnings have been battered by severe dry weather in Australia.
With stock then languishing near five-year lows, in March 2014 Nufarm announced a massive restructure program that included closure of two manufacturing facilities in Western Australia and Queensland and six of its 13 regional service centres, along with more than 100 job cuts. This was followed in April by news of the closure of its Otahuhu facility and the loss of 59 jobs in New Zealand.
Management were keen to reassure the market that Nufarm retained its strength, despite the termination of two major distribution agreements in 2013.
The loss of a 10-year distribution agreement with German chemical giant BASF and of distribution rights for Monsanto's popular RoundUp brand of weedkillers hit the company's stocks hard.
Melbourne-based Nufarm Limited is a major international crop protection and specialist seeds producer, making herbicides, insecticides and fungicides.
