ON MAY 3, Sats announced that Craig Smyth was slated to leave the organisation, and “new direct reporting lines” had been given to Sats’ chief executive officer, Kerry Mok.
This succession move comes despite the inflight caterer and ground handler reiterating last month that Smyth, the chief executive officer of Worldwide Flight Services (WFS), would stay on to run the show after the cargo handler was acquired.
At the time, Sats was updating investors on the completion of its Paris-based WFS’ takeover for an enterprise value of about 2.3 billion euros (S$3.3 billion).
It was a surprising U-turn in such a short time, particularly so when Sats had first sought to assure investors about the continuity of Smyth’s leadership in its September 2022 announcement on the proposed acquisition of WFS.
In fact, the company has said numerous times that he would continue to lead the day-to-day operations of WFS in the first year after the completion of the deal.
