Management Resources announces CEO to cease in role with immediate effect

The board of Management Resources announced on Monday that Joe Clayton will cease to be a director and the chief executive officer of the company and all of its subsidiaries associated with immediate effect.

A new chief executive had yet to be appointed, the company said in a statement.

Until then, the senior managers of the two operating businesses, MRS Services Group led by Jonathon McTaggart - who was promoted to the role of chief operating officer - and Bachmann Plant Hire led by Greg Bachmann, would report directly to the board.

Paul Brenton was to assume responsibility of all group finance and administrative functions.

In a pre-close trading update published on 15 August, the company said the operating performance of the business was below expectations.

Management had taken action to reduce both overheads and operating costs at MRS Services Group, which had a positive impact on trading.

Yet the impact from the lack of working capital and the dearth of cash that resulted had been greater than foreseen at the half-year stage, meaning full-year losses would be "materially" higher than market expectations, the company said on that occassion.

One-off exceptional costs were also set to be "materially" greater than expected, the company warned in April.

The group's shares surged 12.50% to 3.38p by 12:40 BST