FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Gerresheimer , under pressure from investors to review its strategy, said on Friday that finance chief Bernd Metzner would be replaced with a company outsider with a background in private equity, drawing support from an activist shareholder.
The packaging and medical equipment maker said that Metzner had resigned at his own request and that Wolf Lehmann would take over from September 1.
Metzner has been in the spotlight following the failed sale of Gerresheimer to financial investors and a decline in the company’s share price, with activist investor Active Ownership Capital (AOC) recently demanding that his position be re-examined.
AOC, a major shareholder in Gerresheimer, said last week it saw major potential for value creation at the company and called for a strategic review, a second activist investor to do so.
An AOC spokesperson said the investor welcomed the “swift” changeover as well as Lehmann’s proven financial expertise.
“We expect him to provide important new impetus and make a decisive contribution to leveraging the existing potential for improvement,” the spokesperson added.
Lehmann was most recently an operating partner at private equity firm Triton.
Gerresheimer said that given the changes, it would postpone its Capital Markets Day planned for October 15 to a later date.
(Reporting by Ralf Banser and Matthias Inverardi, writing by Linda Pasquini and Ludwig Burger, editing by Miranda Murray)
