Hornby Plc : Appointment of New Chief Executive

appointment of NEW chief executive

Hornby Plc, the international models and collectibles group, today announces that Richard Ames has been appointed as Chief Executive.  He will join the group in April.

Richard has a wealth of experience of leading fast moving consumer facing businesses.  His most recent role was as a main Board Director at Ladbrokes plc, where latterly he was Managing Director of its Product Division.  He joined Ladbrokes in 2005 and had run the UK and Ireland Retail operations where he was responsible for managing a successful retail turnaround strategy.  Earlier in his career he worked at Dixons Stores Group Plc as Marketing Director, Essentials and prior to this he was the Purchasing Director in its Domestic Appliances operations.  He also helped to lead the consumer electronics divisions at Asda Wal-Mart and he started his career at Philips Consumer Electronics. 

With Richard joining Hornby, Roger Canham, the Chairman, will resume his non-Executive role. 

Roger Canham, Chairman said,

" I am delighted that Richard is joining Hornby.  He has a wealth of experience of leading consumer facing businesses.  I was impressed with his track record of implementing successful marketing strategies and managing complex supply chains.  Finally, I am pleased that he has a genuine passion and enthusiasm for the Hornby business and I am confident that Hornby is in good hands as we move forward."

Richard Ames, the new Chief Executive commented,

"This is a fantastic opportunity to lead one of the UK's best loved companies.  Hornby has built a superb collection of brands, that have tremendous potential both in the UK and overseas markets.

"I am personally very excited to be joining the company.  Looking forward, I am confident that Hornby has an excellent platform from which it can build the scale and reach of its business and that the future for the group and our shareholders is very good."

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Date: 13 February 2014

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