Chemours places CEO on administrative leave
29th February 2024
USA: Chemours has placed its president and CEO Mark Newman, CFO Jonathan Lock and principal accounting officer Camela Wisel on administrative leave pending the completion of an internal review.
The refrigerant supplier has also announced a delay to its fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results and its annual report on Form 10-K which was due to be filed today.
In a statement, Chemours says: “Mr Newman’s, Mr Lock’s and Ms Wisel’s leave is pending the completion of an internal review being overseen by the audit committee of the board of directors with the assistance of independent outside counsel, which scope includes the processes for reviewing reports made to the Chemours Ethics Hotline, the Company’s practices for managing working capital, including the related impact on metrics within the Company’s incentive plans, certain non-GAAP metrics included in filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission or otherwise publicly released, and related disclosures.”
Material weaknesses
The company says it is evaluating one or more potential material weaknesses in its internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023 with respect to maintaining effective controls related to the control environment, including the effectiveness of the “tone at the top” set by certain members of senior management and information and communication components of the COSO internal control framework.
Denise Dignam, the current president of Chemours’ Titanium Technologies division has been appointed as interim CEO and Matt Abbott as the interim CFO. Abbott has served as our senior VP & chief enterprise transformation officer, with responsibility for enterprise capital projects and engineering technology, information technology, cyber security, digital and data analytics, and procurement, since June 2023.
Mark Newman was appointed CEO in 2021. He joined the company in 2014 as senior vice president and chief financial officer, performance chemicals. He was appointed senior vice president and chief operating officer in 2019.
