Besides WSJ, Forbes, Business Insider, Reuters, and Market Watch all picked up the story speculating about Sheri McCoy’s future at Avon Products.
Credible rumor
Reporting for WSJ, Dana Cimilluca and Sharon Terlep attributed the rumor of CEO Sheri McCoy’s iminet retirement from Avon Products to unnamed sources, “people familiar with the matter.”
Those sources indicated that while McCoy is expected to announce her retirement before too long, no terms have been finalized, no new CEO has been named, and she’ll likely remain at the helm for some months to come.
“The move comes after Avon in early May posted a surprise loss that sent its stock tumbling,” Cimilluca and Terlep write in a short version of their WSJ piece that ran on MarketWatch.com. “That same day, shareholder activists Barington Capital Group LP and NuOrion Partners AG, which together own more than 3% of the company’s stock, said Avon’s turnaround needs to go faster and it should find a new CEO.”
Rate of change
McCoy’s retirement, should it come soon as is being predicted, would be one more in a long line of corporate and leadership changes the company has made over the past year or so.
The North American business was handed over to Cerberus Capital Management in March of 2016 in an effort to make it profitable again. That company is now known as New Avon. This January the remaining global company called Avon Products moved its headquarters out of the US and is now operating from London. All along the way company leadership has been in flux.
In March the company announced it would be hiring a new UK-based general counsel, as Cosmetics Design reported. And this week Avon Products hired Miguel Fernandez as the new global president.
If McCoy is next to go, she’ll be leaving not only a distinguished post within the company but within the beauty industry as well. As Cosmetics Design reported last week, McCoy is the only woman leading a beauty company on the Fortune 500.