Charles Andrews will join the security printing group – currently under fire over its performance from activist investor Crystal Amber – on 11 April, and will become part of its group executive leadership team, but will not be a director of the business. 

Harding, who is leaving to join PayPoint, will continue to serve as a director of the company during his six-month notice period to assist with an orderly transition.

Andrews becomes the group's third CFO in just over three years.

De La Rue CEO Clive Vacher said: "We are delighted that Charles will be joining De La Rue as interim chief financial officer. His wide-ranging experience with a proven ability to lead change and transformation at an executive level will be invaluable us as we continue to hone and refine the group." 

Andrews was most recently senior vice president of the Airframes business at Meggitt, and prior to that held senior roles in finance at Ingram Micro and GSK.

Yesterday (5 April), Crystal Amber fired a further salvo in its campaign for change at De La Rue with a letter to shareholders headlined ‘Failed Turnaround Plan, major governance and stewardship concerns and chronic share price underperformance at DLR requires replacing Chairman’.

Crystal Amber also claimed that De La Rue’s polymer business was not performing as expected, and stated: “The interim results presentation in November 2022 referred to the company's second polymer line at Westhoughton being ‘fully operational’. The company failed to disclose that this line has been mothballed because there are no orders requiring fulfilment. This follows £20m of capital investment.”

At the time of writing De La Rue had not made any further statement regarding the Crystal Amber situation.