Chairman Michael Barker and interim chief executive Dave Allen told the annual general meeting on 15 November that they had inherited a company that was bloated and bureaucratic.
They accused the previous leadership team of overpaying itself and lacking transparency and attention to detail.
Both men said that further restructuring and cost-cutting would occur in a bid to turn around a $267 million annual loss and return to profitability in 2013-14.
Allen said: “A new culture is being driven across the business. We are making the tough calls necessary to put our company on a sustainable footing and we are rapidly implementing a leaner structure.
“We have begun to ‘challenge the unchallengeable’, as we move towards a more transparent and accountable culture.”
[Related: Paperlinx board coup fails]
The new board also foreshadowed that Paperlinx might sell its unprofitable German and Dutch operations, after already exiting eight of the 26 countries in which it has been trading.
Barker said that Australia, New Zealand and Canada had been put on a sustainable footing due to cost-cutting and consolidation, but that Europe was “seriously underperforming”.
Former non-executive director Andrew Price has been appointed executive director and sent to Europe for at least six months to help turn the region around.
Paperlinx revealed it would cut another 200 jobs in Europe in addition to the 170 redundancies already announced. The merchant also said it would spend $3 million to restructure its UK business in order to generate $13 million in annualised savings.
Prominent Paperlinx critic Graham Critchley welcomed the new board’s bluntness and backed it to succeed.
“Nothing and no one is sacred… Finally, Paperlinx is now a different business,” he said.
“I’ve been an advocate for change and the only logical thing for everyone to do now is to back the changed team.
“Therefore, I believe they will succeed, and if they don’t, you can be guaranteed that the former team would have failed sooner than most people expected.”
[Related: Ups and downs of Paperlinx]
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