Ian Croxford, new boss at troubled cake maker Inter Link Foods, is wielding the axe and considering converting some debt.

‘Head count is being reduced, but we need to get the company’s debt down quickly and we don’t want to dispose of the good bits of the business,’ said Croxford, who took up his new post as Inter Link’s chief executive officer on 1 May. Jeremy Hamer, chairman of the former acquisitive AIM darling, recruited Croxford, a noted turnaround specialist at much larger companies in the food sector, after the Blackburn-based company shocked the market by warning of impending operating losses, put by analysts at £2 million.

Croxford, 49, whose experience includes helping sort out Premier Foods for private equity group Hicks Muse, turning round Pendleton Frozen Ice Cream and spells with Vestey-owned Union International, Tate & Lyle and Northern Foods, says it could take ‘from six to 18 months’ to put Inter Link back on a solid basis. Inter Link is ‘fundamentally a good business, but it had gone financially astray’, he said.

‘The company bought eight businesses in four years and never integrated one of them,’ said Croxford, who spent time doing due diligence and getting to know Inter Link’s business, staff and banks before taking on the challenge. ‘My main concern is keeping the cash under control and the banks on side and getting the debt down,’ he continued. Croxford does not rule out a possible conversion of some debt into equity.

Inter Link shares, floated nine years ago at 110p, plunged from last year’s high of 770p to 71.5p last March and have rallied modestly to 108p since then, valuing the company at £12.6 million. ‘I am looking forward to it,’ enthused Croxford.

Inter Link Foods	AIM	0pm	p	p
Click here for interactive charting
Other company articles:
Inter Link relents on approach			23/05/2007
Heads roll at Inter Link			03/05/2007
Inter Link into the red			16/02/2007
Inter Link			11/01/2007
Global warming hits Inter Link			09/01/2007