Lego boss steps aside with toymaker still losing money

Trying to come up with a plan to build a better company Lego is changing bosses.

The owner and chief executive Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen will step down from the top job but stay as deputy chairman of the board. He has been CEO for 18 years. The family-run Danish toy company has been struggling to make a profit. Sales have fallen by between 25% and 30% in the last two years. It has reduced costs and cut the workforce by over 1,000, but turnover is down again this year from 1.13 billion euros to 1.07 billion and it expects to make an even bigger loss of 269 million euros. The company has acknowledged that more cuts and sales of assets are neccessary and it said it is planning to transfer its Legoland theme parks to a separate company which might then be partly or completely sold. Lego also plans to increasingly focus on its classic of products plastic building bricks after admitting it had diversified too much into things like clothes and video games.

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