(Reuters) - Chemring Group Plc appointed army veteran Michael Flowers as chief executive as the British defence contractor grapples with continued global defence budget cuts and falling profits.
Flowers, an executive committee member who has previously worked with Europe's biggest defence contractor BAE Systems and served in the Australian Army for 22 years, would take over from Mark Papworth, who steered a revamp of the FTSE-250 company since joining in 2012.
Shares in the company fell as much as 6.6 percent to 193.75 pence in morning trade, making the stock one of the top percentage losers on the London Stock Exchange.
"We are now moving from a period of critical and significant change ... to achieve this, a different set of skills is required in the role of Chief Executive, in particular extensive knowledge and understanding of the defence markets in which we operate," Chairman Peter Hickson said in a statement on Tuesday.
Flowers, who has been with the company since 2006 in different roles, led the sale of Chemring's European munitions business following the strategic review in 2013.
The company, which makes ejector seats for fighter jets and decoy flares used to counter heat-seeking missiles, said underlying pretax profit for the first half fell 29 percent to 18 million pounds from a year earlier. Revenue for the six months ended April 30 declined to 277.4 million pounds from 297.4 million pounds.
The maker of countermeasures and IED detectors said it would pay an interim dividend of 2.40 pence compared with 3.40 pence it paid last year.
Chemring shares were down 6.4 percent at 194.25 pence at 0749 GMT.
(Reporting by Aashika Jain in Bangalore; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)