Managing director of Tyrone Crystal resigns

THE managing director of Tyrone Crystal, Mr George Priestley, has resigned just 15 months after being appointed. According to company chairman Mr Frank Higgins, Mr Priestley's decision was the result of "recent differences of opinion on marketing priorities for the company.

Mr Priestley was a member of the consortium which bought Tyrone Crystal from the Dungannon & District Co op for £1.2 million in July 1995. He was appointed managing director in succession to Mr Pat Killen, who had been dismissed from his £56,000 a year - post the previous March after 14 years in charge.

The consortium included local firm Ulster Fireclay and some members of Tyrone Crystal's management team. Its successful bid came after two takeover attempts by other bidders.

They included a £2.3 million offer for the company made by a management buy out team put together by Mr Killen. This offer was rejected in favour of a £1 million bid by Belleek Pottery. This bid subsequently collapsed following a revelation that a telephone conversation between Belleek's owner, Irish American businessman Mr George Moore, and its financial director, Mr Martin Sharkey, had been secretly taped.

When the successful consortium finally took over the company 15 months ago, its chairman Mr Higgins said that Tyrone Crystal had gone through a "turbulent period", but that its problems were now behind it, a judgment which now appears to have been somewhat premature.

Before joining Tyrone Crystal, Mr Priestley had a distinguished business record. A former board member of the North's IDB, he had founded the Antrim based food distribution company Old Mill Marketing, which had a turnover of more than £7 million when he sold it for an undisclosed sum in 1987. He remained as managing director for another five years.