Rajiv Sharma decides to step down as CEO; David Paja announced as replacement Coats Group has just issued a press release announcing that Rajiv Sharma will step down from his position by the end of the 2024 after eight years as CEO and 14 years with Coats. He will be replaced by David Paja, most recently CEO of GKN Aerospace. Paja is expected to become an executive director on 1 September 2024 and will assume responsibilities from Sharma on 1 October 2024. Sharma will remain available to the Board and David until the end of the year. Sharma leaves Coats in a strong position having driven significant transformation Over his tenure, Rajiv Sharma has focussed the Group''s exposure on industrial threads, disposed of its underperforming textile crafts businesses and built out its footwear offering. These changes, alongside two restructuring programmes, have driven an improvement in Coats'' EBIT margin. In ''23 Coats delivered a peak margin (16.7%) despite volumes being near trough levels. Such strong performance means we are disappointed to see him go but reassured that Coats have an orderly succession plan in place as the Group shifts from transformation to a phase of profitable growth. David Paja brings wealth of industrial experience Rajiv''s replacement, David Paja, acted most recently as CEO of GKN Aerospace between August 2021 and October 2023 where he oversaw a step up in margin from c. 5% to c. 12%. Prior to GKN Aerospace, Paja started his career at Valeo and went on to hold senior leadership positions at Aptiv and Honeywell. Paja brings a strong track record of delivering profitable growth as well as experience integrating acquisitions within industrial B2B businesses. No change to strategy; we expect continuation of strong performance through FY24 We anticipate no major changes to Coats'' strategy. After a strong Q1 update last month, we expect a continuation of the recovery in Coats'' end markets to underpin record profitability levels through the...