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Postman Pat owner Entertainment Rights is parting company with chief executive Nick Phillips less than nine months after he joined the group.
The debt-ridden media rights company, also home to Basil Brush and Rupert Bear, said Phillips will be leaving at the end of this week.
Phillips, a former boss of Warner Music UK, became chief executive in March after the departure of founder Mike Heap. Since March the company has issued a series of profit warnings, battled to reduce a £125m debt pile, and written down the value of several assets including its popular puppet fox.
After breaching its banking covenants at the end of the summer, the company remains in talks with lenders to secure its funding on a permanent basis. Its shares, which were changing hands at almost 20p this time last year, have crashed in recent months, and dropped another 22% today to just 0.9p.
It is understood that Entertainment Rights felt it needed a turnaround specialist to get the company through its predicament. In October it recruited Edward Knighton to be its new finance director, citing his "extensive experience of turnaround situations".
A company spokesman said Phillips' exit had been a "very amicable departure". Further details about his successor would be provided "in due course", the company said.
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