Vellacott out, Kneen in at IndigoVision

IndigoVision has a new CEO, the company announced this morning. IndigoVision, which is based in Ednburgh, Scotland is a manufacturer of IP video security solutions. The board announced that founder Oiver Vellacott, who founded the company in 1994, has “taken the business to this stage, the time was right for him to hand over the leadership of the company. The Board was keen for Oliver to continue with the business as deputy chairman, but the position was declined." Vellacott is the majority stockholder in the company, reportedly owning “more than 23 percent interest worth almost 5 million Brittish pounds.”

Marcus Kneen, who's served as CFO since 2003 has been named CEO of the company.  In a prepared statement IndigoVision board chairman Hamish Grossart notes that, Kneen “has been closely involved in IndigoVision's international expansion and has overseen the recent improvement in trading.” Holly McComb, currently financial controller will take over the CFO role. McComb has been with the company since 2006.

In a prepared statement, Kneen said: "Oliver has been a great mentor over the years and remains the Group's largest shareholder. IndigoVision has fantastic people and its strongest road map of new products for several years, as a result of a sustained high level of investment in engineering. This will help the business to grow, building on in its deal-winning distributed architecture, industry-leading compression and ability to integrate with the elements of a total security system such as access control, perimeter detection, license plate recognition or events from casino slot machines. If you are defending a nation's critical assets or operating a major casino, these features win deals!"

The company's stock price dropped sharply and operating profits took a dive in 2011 (its FY ended in July 2011). The company's annual report says operating profit was 1.19 million Brittish pounds in 2011 compared to 3.05 million Brittish pounds in 2010. Here's a statement from Vellacott from this year's annual report: “Difficult trading towards the end of last year resulted in a reduction in operating profits, but the group continuedto grow sales in some markets. We have had a slow start to the current financial year and although sales in the first seven weeks of the current year are approximately in line with last year, order intake is down on the corresponding period last year. Over the last twelve months a great deal of work has been undertaken improving the rate of introduction of new products and we expect that these will start to show through in improved business results.
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IndigoVision reported that the operating result for the first four months of the current financial year had been excellent.  Profit performance was significantly higher than the corresponding period last year, and materially ahead of the same period in any earlier year. 

The local press in Scotland has considerably more color in their reports of the executive transition. The Business.Scotsman.com reported on Saturday “IndigoVision sacks Vellacott from company he founded.”  The report quotes Vellacott as saying “I was dismissed by the company—I did not leave voluntarily. That is all I wish to say.” While the “Herald Scotsman” reported on Saturday “Chief executive dismissed after rift in boardroom.” The Herald Scotsman had the same quote from Vellacott saying he did not leave voluntarily. Board chairman Grossart is quoted as saying they wanted to offer Vellacott an alternate position at the company, but he refused. I have calls into IndigoVision headquarters in New Jersey and in the U.K., but haven't heard back yet.

According to their website, IndigoVision has sales and support staff in 24 countries. “We partner with some 300 trained system integrators to provide local installation and service to end users in 84 countries. We provide support from six regional centers, in New Jersey, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Dubai, London and Edinburgh, with training facilities, demo suites and local stocking.”

IndigoVision has four regional sales directors, covering APAC, EMEA, Latin America and North America who will report to Kneen. Kevin Bradley is the director in North America. Bradley took over that role in 2010. Here's a link to an interview I did with him after his appointment.