William Stobart steps down as director at Eddie Stobart Logistics

William Stobart has stepped down as a director of the business that bears his surname ahead of its float on the stock exchange on the 25 April.

William Stobart is one of four directors to step down at Eddie Stobart Logistics, alongside Ian Duncan, Saki Riffner, and Ben Whawell.

Four new directors have been appointed, including chief executive Alex Laffey, chief financial officer Damien Harte and Philip Swatman as an independent non-executive chairman. Stephen Harley has been appointed as a non-executive too.

Christopher Casey has also been proposed as a non-executive director but has yet to be appointed at Companies House, according to records at the time of publication.

At the time of writing Stobart remained a director at several businesses including O’Connor Container Transport (a Greenwhitestar subsidiary) and vinyl wrap specialists Ast Signs.

The Eddie Stobart Logistics website still lists him as part of the executive team, but without an official job title.

Harte was most recently global chief financial officer of wind turbine manufacturer LM Windpower, while Swatman was MD and subsequently co-head of investment banking at NM Rothschild.

More recently, Swatman has held non-executive roles at a range of companies.

He was chairman of Wyvern Partners as well as non-executive chairman for Cambria Automobile

The business has also formally changed its name ahead of its expected admission date this month.

While it has traded as Eddie Stobart Logistics since it spun-off from minority shareholder Stobart Group into the private hands of DouglasBay Capital in 2014 – it has been officially registered as Greenwhitestar UK at Companies House, until it changed its name on 3 April to Eddie Stobart Logistics.

In the year-ending 30 November 2016 Eddie Stobart Logistics had a turnover of £570.2m and made a pre-tax profit of £11.2m.

When it floats on the Alternative Investment Market it is targeting a a market capitalisation of admission in excess of £550m, with approximately £130m of proceeds to be raised for the company to allow it to grow organically but also make bolt-on acquisitions.

When filing for the listing it revealed that there is one acquisition to strengthen its activities in e-commerce already in the pipeline.