Victoria taps Synthomer's Brian Morgan as its new CFO

Flooring company Victoria announced the upcoming departure of its chief financial officer Mike Scott on Wednesday, after more than six years in the post, with his position set to be filled by Synthomer director of group finance Brian Morgan.

The AIM-traded firm said Scott would continue in his role until Morgan’s scheduled start on 22 August, and would then remain as a non-executive director until the next annual general meeting, to assist with the transition.

After that, it said he would continue to be available “as needed”.

“During Mike's time at Victoria, the group has grown from a small UK-centric carpet manufacturer with revenues of £250m in 2016, to a global flooring group with current annual revenues of £1.5bn,” said chairman Geoff Wilding.

“In line with this growth, Mike has led the group through several successful capital raising processes, most recently the €750m senior bond issue in March 2021, the undrawn £150m revolving credit facility, and the £150m follow-on preferred equity issue in January this year.

“Mike has also built a strong, integrated finance team that includes 20 senior finance professionals across eight countries.”

Brian Morgan was joining Victoria from the FTSE 250 company Synthomer, where he had been director of group finance since 2017.

The company said Morgan had spent his entire career operating across multi-national companies, and had a “proven ability” to adapt to “vastly different business cultures”, having managed teams globally, also giving him a “deep understanding” of cross-jurisdictional accounting.

Victoria's board said it was attracted to the fact that, in addition to his responsibility for accounting, financial reporting, budgeting, treasury, and tax, Morgan had a “strong” background in mergers and acquisitions, having previously been part of the corporate finance team at a big four accounting firm, and more recently leading the Synthomer finance team through five acquisitions, including two transformational deals of around $1bn each.

He also led the business' issue of €520m in senior bonds in June 2020.

Aside from the requisite CFO skills, the board said it also focussed on finding someone with experience of high-growth and entrepreneurial environments, who would be a “good cultural fit” and know how to continue to develop Victoria's strong governance and control mechanisms further.

At 1310 BST, shares in Victoria were down 0.78% at 510p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.