The chief financial officer and principal accounting officer at aerospace giant Spirit AeroSystems have resigned amid an ongoing accounting probe triggered by a compliance review.
Jose Garcia, senior vice president and chief financial officer, and John Gilson, vice president, controller and principal accounting officer, each tendered their resignations, the company announced Thursday. The company has appointed Mark Suchinski as senior vice president and chief financial officer and Damon Ward as interim controller and principal accounting officer, effective Jan. 29.
The changes in finance leadership come a month after Spirit began an internal review of its accounting processes following concerns raised by its compliance program. Though the review is still ongoing, Spirit has identified it “did not comply with its established accounting processes related to certain potential contingent liabilities that were received by Spirit after the end of third quarter 2019,” the company stated.
Despite these transgressions, Spirit currently expects it will not have to restate its financial statements for the third quarter ended Sept. 26, 2019, or materially impact the financial statements for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2019. The company notes, though, that no final conclusion has been made.
“Spirit is taking steps to strengthen procedures relating to contingent liabilities of this type to ensure they are processed correctly in the future,” the company said, adding it has reported its findings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Spirit expects to file its Form 10-K for the 2019 fiscal year by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s deadline.”
Suchinski has been with Spirit since 2006 and served as the company’s vice president, controller and principal accounting officer from February 2014 to February 2018. Most recently, he served as vice president, quality, beginning in August 2019 and as vice president, Boeing 787 program, from February 2018 to August 2019.
Ward has been with Spirit since January 2009 and served as the company’s tax director from January 2012 to January 2020.
Spirit’s revenue figures took a sizeable hit earlier this month when the company announced its decision to stop all 737 Max deliveries to Boeing effective Jan. 1. The 737 Max, which Spirit provides several parts for, remains grounded in the wake of two deadly crashes and the subsequent fallout that led to the resignation of former Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg in December.
Spirit on Thursday separately announced it reached an agreement with Boeing to restart production on 737 Max parts, ramping up deliveries to reach a total of 216 Max shipsets delivered to Boeing in 2020. Spirit has previously noted more than 50 percent of its annual revenue comes from the 737 components it provides.
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