Victoria Plc - comment

Philippe Hamers, Group CEO of Victoria Plc, has announced his intention to retire in the middle of next year. The timing makes some sense, given Victoria has exited from its financial restructuring. However, Victoria needs to continue to focus on its self-help initiatives of cost savings to deleverage and rebuild the balance sheet.  The CFO is a former M&A banker at Deutsche Bank, so unlikely to possess the industry knowledge to drive costs out, so we expect any successor should have an operational background.