John Cerini has stepped down as CEO of Pro-Pac Group, with Ian Shannon, who was chief operating officer of the company, taking over the role, and becoming managing director.
Shannon joined Pro-Pac on 1 June this year, coming from pillow and quilt manufacturer John Cotton Australia, where he had been CEO for seven years.
Shannon's remuneration has been set at $600,000 a year plus super, with an additional short term incentive of $600,000 subject to satisfactory key performance indicators, and another $600,000 a year as a long term incentive, subject to satisfaction of performance hurdles.
His career has had a commercial focus, with 20 years of sales and marketing experience in consumer and industrial products and hospitality businesses, gained at companies such as Pacific Brands, ALH Group, and Foster’s.
Cerini had been CEO for two years, taking the role two years after Pro-Pac's acquisition of Integrated Packaging, which he ran. He will continue as company chairman, a role he assumed on 1 July following the retirement of Jonathon Ling, and he will also remain in an executive role to support the business, on a part-time, three-days-a-week basis.
The changes at the top mean that in the last five months Pro-Pac has had a new chairman, a new CEO, a new managing director, and a new CFO, with Patsy Ch’ng taking over from Domenic Romanelli
Difficult trading conditions at home and overseas continue to impact on the performance of Pro-Pac. A significant reduction in volume from a major customer, adverse weather, rising resin costs, and consumers tightening the purse strings, were reasons cited by Pro-Pac for sending it deep into the red in the 2023-24 financial year.
Flexibles revenue was down by 13.3 per cent to $230.1m, while Specialty Packaging fell by 11.8 per cent to $65.1m. Losses soared to $53.8m from $8.5m last year. EBIT losses tripled to $15.5m, while the profit before tax figure doubled to a loss of $22.1m. The company added $12.8m to its debt, which stands at $27.8m.
