SE Labels has completed its new leadership team for the planned demerger from Norwegian parent Rieber & Son later this year.


Ken Forster, managing director of SE Labels UK, said: The merger will happen by July and we must be well armed to go forward as an independent concern.


The parent said last year it would jettison its labels division of seven firms after profits failed to reflect the growth in turnover (PrintWeek, 25 August).


Forster has appointed Paul Shuttleworth, founder of Double S Labels and most recently consultant at Label Vision, as operations director at SE Delta Label Systems.


He joins UK group sales and marketing director Les Bradley who replaced Preben Hadberg after he retired and returned to his native Denmark.


The leadership team includes Steve Errington, UK group commercial director, who was a project manager at directory printer Elanders.


Steve Dunn became managing director of SE Delta Label Systems last autumn and David Smith, a former manager at Ernst & Young, rounds off the team as group finance director.


We are going back as a publicly quoted company, and after Preben left we needed to strengthen the overall team, said Forster.


Shareholders had approved the move and nothing would stop it now, he said.