Outgoing East African Cables’ chief executive officer Peter Arina. Photo/ businessdailyafrica.comEast African Cables’ chief executive officer Peter Arina has resigned from the firm, marking the second such departure from the office in two years.
Arina’s departure coincided with a deterioration in the firm’s performance in the half-year that ended June when sales, earnings and shareholder funds dropped by double to triple digits.
He was appointed CEO in October 2015 to replace George Mwangi who had resigned a month earlier to launch his start-up milk firm, Countryside Dairy.
“That the resignation of Peter Arina as the chief executive officer of the company with effect from August 31, 2017 be and is hereby accepted,” EA Cables said in a statement released on Tuesday.
The cables manufacturer added that Paul Muigai—who has been the chief operating officer— has been appointed the acting CEO effective Tuesday (August 29).
Arina, who had earlier left Safaricom as the chief commercial officer in 2014, resigned as the cable manufacturer’s net loss widened 7.4 times to Sh232.4 million in the half-year ended June.
The performance came on the back of a 30 percent sales drop to Sh1.4 billion, which the company blamed on its inability to fulfill orders from random customers.
“The non-contracted business segment experienced a 30 percent drop in revenues hampered greatly by continued constraint in accessing working capital lines,” the company said s quoted by Business Daily.
“The heavy capital investment that resulted in tripling of installed capacity led to greater need for working capital financing but access to credit lines was affected by reduced lending appetite following the introduction of interest rate caps.”