Future FD steps down after results errors.
The finance director of publishing company Future Network is stepping down after bearing the brunt of tackling accounting errors that overstated profits by £3m.
Ian Linkins, who joined Future in 1999, will remain in a reduced role as group finance manager.
Future has suffered a series of setbacks in the past year following the downturn in the technology sector and the discovery that its French subsidiary had overstated its results by £3m in 1998.
The group, which produces titles like Total Film and .net, announced increased losses for 1999-2000 of £60.8m on a turnover of £254m, as a result of expenditure of £35.7m and a drop in advertising revenues.
Future’s chairman, Chris Anderson, said: ‘Ian has taken the lion’s share of the pressure resulting from Future’s woes of 2000 and I fully understand his desire to move on to another senior role within the company.’
Non-executive board member Michael Penington, who is not an accountant, will replace Linkins until a full-time FD is found. Prior to his appointment to the board, Penington served as executive director in the corporate finance department of investment bank Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.
The appointment is part of a shake-up, said to be an effort to appease investors who saw share prices drop 75% in the past year.
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