Nortura’s chief executive Arne Kristian Kolberg has resigned from the Norway-based meat processor amid disappointment among the board of directors with the company’s financial results.

Hans Thorn Wittussen will assume the CEO duties for the time being while the company begins a search to recruit a new chief, Oslo-based Nortura said in a statement today (21 November).

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Lisbeth Svendsen, the current executive vice president of production, will fill Wittussen’s vacant seat. 

Nortura, which reports its results in four-month segments rather than quarterly, has seen losses widen this year. It posted a loss before tax of NOK9m (US$1.1m) in the most recent period, taking the shortfall for the first eight months of 2018 to NOK135m, according to figure issued late in October.

It said then that the company was implementing a three-year “improvement programme” to return the business to profit, measures that would result in a reduction in the company’s headcount.

Chairman Trine Hasvang Vaag said in today’s statement that Kolberg has been at Nortura for 20 years, and has served as CEO for the past five, “leading  the company through many major and demanding changes”.

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“But lately, there are too many arrows pointing in the wrong direction and we do not have time to wait for significant improvements,” the chairman said. “The board therefore sees the need to make this change now.”

Kolberg acknowledged it was time to leave: “When I fail to achieve the results that the board expects, it is their duty to do something about it,” he said.