"Effective immediately", Graham Davy, head of Sims Metal Management's European operations and global e-scrap activities, "is no longer employed by the company". Among other management changes, Hans-Otto Hagemann has been appointed acting managing director of the e-waste operations in the UK and in continental Europe, according to a short announcement released by the scrap recycling group on Tuesday.
Sims did not comment on the background to the move. The company had announced in a January profit warning that the carrying value of inventory in the British operations of its Sims Recycling Solutions (SRS) e-scrap division had been "materially overstated", and booked a write-down of AUD78m (about €62m) in the following month. Among other factors, the group attributed the overstatement to "failure to adequately supervise operations" and maintain adequate controls over financial reporting relating to inventory at two British sites, Long Marston and Newport.