New era at Corac

Professor Gerry Musgrave is resigning as executive chairman of compressor technology concern Corac, which the commercially minded academic floated on AIM nine years ago and has steered through good times and bad ever since.  A former pro-vice chancellor and research leader at Brunel University, he is also leaving the board in the wake of annual pre-tax losses of £3.7 million.

Uxbridge-based Corac, which specialises in direct-drive turbo machinery, doubled turnover to £1.3 million last year, but sales costs more than doubled to £946,000, combined research and development and administrative expenses reached £4.1 million and finance income plunged by three-quarters to £47,000.

Phil Cartmell, former head of aerospace and defence business at Vega Group, joined the company as chief executive in September, and Mark Crawford replaced Philip Newell as commercial and finance director in November, while entrepreneurial Rohan Courtney has recently replaced Sian Westerman as a non-executive director.

Musgrave, who has guided Corac enthusiastically through its different stages of development, takes a characteristically upbeat view of the latest changes. He declares, ‘By combining the expertise of the new team and bringing a more dynamic commercial approach, we have the potential to deliver our technology more rapidly into the market’.

Investors, who have seen Corac shares crumble from a 105p float price in 2001 to 19.5p now, must hope he is right.