TiG dumps Rob Terry

The Innovation Group (TiG) dumped its founder Rob Terry and sent him off with a £437,500 pay-off.

This figure is a mere fraction of the £335m Terry was worth before the dotcom bubble burst - and TiG's own difficulties - brought the value of his company crashing to earth.

Founded six years ago and floated in 2000 at 229p a share, there was a time when TiG could do no wrong.

By the end of 2000 after its float, it had outperformed the Techmark index by more than 250%.

But the peak share price of 899p, achieved in September of that year, soon became a hopelessly unrealistic target.

Terry cashed in about £8m when the company floated, but his 16.6% stake is now worth £9.6m.

Concerns over TiG's accounting practices and the transparency of its books eroded investor confidence and the company was forced to launch a £9m rights issue in February.

Terry's head was widely seen as the price demanded in the City for backing the rights issue and the former chairman and chief executive became a non-executive at that time.

Chief executive Hassan Sadiq said the company's reputation and results were "slowly but surely" improving.

He added: "We've had our difficulties over the past 18 months. We were losing £4m, and slowly but surely the business is turning back into profit."

Group finance director Paul Smolinski said that the company had made strong additions to the board.

David Thorpe from EDS was appointed as a non-executive director and chairman of the remuneration committee.

Chris Banks, formerly finance director at software giant CMG, joined last month also as a non-executive director.