Williams to step down as Devro's finance chief

Sausage skin maker Devro is hunting for a new finance director after announcing the retirement of Peter Williams next year.

Williams, who turns 59 in March, will leave on 6 April. Devro hopes to appoint a successor before then, and has hired an unnamed recruitment consultancy to head the search.

Williams has been with the Moodiesburn-based food casings group since 2008, having previously been chief financial officer of Cermaq, an Oslo-listed specialist in aquaculture and salmon farming. Prior to that he worked in finance at Pringle of Scotland and Courtaulds Textiles, having qualified as a chartered accountant with Coopers & Lybrand in Edinburgh.

Devro chairman Steve Hannam said: "Peter has been with the company during a period of quite exceptional growth, and we thank him for his considerable contribution. He leaves with our best wishes."

Devro, one of the world's biggest makers of sausage skins from collagen, entered the FTSE 250 in August after a strong run by its shares earlier this year.

Profits in the first half of this year rose 86 per cent to 17 million after robust sales in the UK, as well as Russia and Japan. Global demand for collagen casings is growing at about 5 per cent a year, driven in part by increased meat consumption in emerging markets.