No great surprise that Renold (RNO) has changed its chief executive. It is three years since RNO launched a highly dilutive £26.9m rescue capital raising (roughly tripling the shares in issue to 219.6m), and seven years since the company last paid a dividend.

RNO’s shares, which had been trading at 27.75p on the eve of the refinancing, are currently trading around the 20p level at which the shares were issued in 2009. Admittedly, the world economy has not been kind to a highly operationally geared company like RNO. But Bob Davies, RNO's outgoing CEO, has run the business since April 2004, which should have been more than long enough to develop a more robust business model.

There are a few slivers of good news in RNO’s latest half year results, http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/news/market-news/market-news-detail.html?announcementId=11401898 most notably the improvement in working capital. But the business remains far too vulnerable to changes in demand, particularly in its traditional chain business where it is one of the top three global players in a £1bn a year market.

Group revenues in the six months to September 2012 are 6% down, at £96.7m, yet underlying operating profits are 41% down at £3.6m. First half operating margins fell from 6% to 3.7% - a far cry from the outgoing management’s 10% target for 2012/13, which it had to abandon earlier this year after rattling the market with a series of profit warnings.

Mark Harper, who took over as RNO’s chairman last July, has wasted little time changing his CEO. Harper was CEO of Filtrona (FLTR), a successful £1.2bn business selling specialist plastic, fibre and foam products globally, until 18 months ago, and has recruited Rob Purcell, one of his former Filtrona lieutenants, to take over as RNO’s CEO in May 2013. In the meantime Harper will be executive chairman.

FLTR is a very different business from RNO. The latter is a traditional engineering company with 14 manufacturing plants in 9 countries. FLTR, by contrast, operates in the plastics business and the protection and finished products division, that Purcell currently runs, has 60 operating units in 21 countries serving a very broad industrial base of customers.

Hopefully, RNO’s new chairman and CEO can use some of the lessons they learnt at FLTR to strengthen RNO’s global marketing skills in the 105 countries in which it sells.

FLTR also has a much…

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