Micro Focus slumps after ousting its chief

Shares in IT group Micro Focus slumped 14% today as it ousted its chief executive Nigel Clifford less than a year after he took the job.

Micro Focus has issued two profit warnings in the past eight months. Its shares, which stood at 546p a year ago, fell 45.7p to 270.6p.

Veteran IT man Kevin Loosemore is moving up from non-executive to executive chairman with no immediate plans to look for a new chief executive.

Loosemore, who has been chairman for six years, was previously chief operating officer of Cable & Wireless and chief executive of IBM in the UK. "My immediate priority is to deliver the year end in line with shareholder expectations," said Loosemore.

He will receive a new full-time contract and a three-year share incentive scheme based on him doubling returns to investors.

He said there was "no change to the guidance previously given to the market" for its results in the year which ends this month.

Analysts are predicting a fall in pre-tax profits from $143 million (£88 million) to around $113 million after the group, which supplies mainframe applications to the likes of Tesco and Boeing, said in February that a number of US companies had deferred upgrades to their systems.