Ladbrokes appoints new chairman
Ladbrokes has appointed John Kelly as its new chairman following the departure of Peter Erskine.
In addition, the betting and gaming company has named Mark Pain as a non-executive director and chairman of the audit committee.
Kelly’s appointment follows the announcement on 7 May 2015 that Erskine intended to step-down from the board during the year. Having delivered a successful shareholder vote for the proposed merger with the Coral Group, Erskine formally left the board and handed over the role to Kelly, who will also be the chair of the proposed merger entity Ladbrokes Coral.
Kelly said: “It is a great honour to take on the role of chairman of Ladbrokes at such an exciting time in the company’s history. We have an aggressive organic plan for growth under our new chief executive, Jim Mullen, and are working hard towards the proposed merger with Coral Group. While there has been much to do, the board and the executive team are focused on delivering for shareholders and I remain confident in the direction and momentum in the business.”
He added: “Peter has worked extremely hard to steer the business through a much needed modernisation and had to help the business face up to some very significant challenges. Peter’s commitment and endeavour has been crucial to getting the business to a point where we have two strong options open to us for growing the business.”
Kelly was appointed a non-executive director and senior independent director of Ladbrokes in 2010. He was founder and chief executive of Gala Coral Group having led a management buy-in from Bass in 1997 and subsequently became chairman until 2009.
Meanwhile, Pain is a former group finance director of Abbey National and Barratt Developments.
In a further move, Sly Bailey has been appointed as chair of the social responsibility committee.
Ladbrokes said that a search is underway for additional non-executive directors to join the board prior to completion of its merger with the Coral Group.
