Chief operating officer Peter Andreou will leave the group at the end of October. Polestar’s chief financial officer Peter Johnston left the business earlier this month.
Chief executive Barry Hibbert told PrintWeek that while the group was currently interviewing potential replacements for Johnston, Andreou would not be directly replaced.
He said Andreou had made a “huge contribution” as the £216.4m-turnover group had been restructured in “an extremely difficult trading environment”.
“We are de-centralising everything. Around 65%-75% of our output is at Sheffield and Chantry now, and we’ve gone from 20 sites to four. All the management tools are going back to site level, and this will be completed by January,” Hibbert explained. “We don’t need a COO as such anymore. We need someone to co-ordinate things, and that will be a different type of person.”
Andreou (pictured below) has done two stints at the group, totalling 11 years. He re-joined the business in 2011 and has overseen its recent investment in wide web offset presses from Goss International.
He said: “Following the significant restructuring of the group, culminating in the major investment in Sheffield, this is a good time for me to move on. Our concentration is now very much Northern based, and we are consolidating management resource at site level. I have enjoyed my time with Polestar immensely and I wish my colleagues, friends and customers every success in the future.”
Separately, Chris Barker, who left the business a year ago, has returned to help the group with the transition.
Polestar has also fired up one of the old presses at Petty to provide additional capacity for the seasonal peak in web production.
Hibbert said Polestar was close to completing its restructure, having announced plans to close Polestar Stones in Banbury earlier this month, and relocate some of its equipment to Bicester.
“By December we will have closed everything we’re going to close. Sheffield is almost up to full production, and there’s just a couple of Ferags to install there. The outputs at Sheffield will be on budget by December,” he stated.
PrintWeek understands that a reshuffle of factory general managers at Sheffield, Chantry and Bicester is also on the cards, but Hibbert said it was too early to give details. “We’re still in consultation with various people, but that should also be complete by December.”
Nottingham-based transactional print and DM operation Applied Solutions and the Wheatons book printing site in Exeter continue to operate as standalone businesses.
