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Diving overview:
- Beyond Meat, a provider of plant-based meat alternatives, has appointed Tony Kalajian as chief accounting officer and chief accounting officer, effective Jan. 12, the company said in a securities filing Monday.
- The appointment comes weeks after the El Segundo, California-based company terminated the employment of former chief accounting officer and controller Yi (Jevy) Luo, who left the company on Dec. 23, CFO Dive previously reported.
- Luo was fired about a month after Beyond Meat identified material weaknesses in its internal controls related to financial reporting and delayed its third-quarter quarterly report by about a week, according to a November filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Dive Insights:
Kalajian will take over as chief accounting officer from Beyond Meat CFO Lubi Kutua, who stepped in on an interim basis following Luo’s firing, according to Monday’s filing. Beyond Meat said Kutua will continue to serve as treasurer and CFO.
Kalajian joined the plant-based meat supplier to improve its internal accounting and financial processes amid ongoing financial turmoil. After disclosing the material vulnerability, management concluded that “inadequate technical resources” were in place to help identify the appropriate accounting treatment for certain transactions and also developed detailed plans to improve those controls.
Those steps included hiring staff with “strong technical accounting and public company reporting knowledge” and implementing new training for key accounting and finance staff, according to a Nov. 12 filing.
Kalajian, a healthcare industry veteran, most recently served as consultant CFO for Quantem Healthcare, which operates as ContinueEM, an outpatient and urgent care services company, according to the filing. According to his LinkedIn profile, he also served as CAO and interim CFO of Calidi Biotherapeutics and CAO of OncoCyte Corporation and Lineage Cell Therapeutics.
In connection with his role as CAO and principal accounting officer, Kalajian will reportedly receive an annual base salary of $325,000, with annual bonus opportunities up to 35% of his base salary. Beyond Meat will also offer him a one-time $35,000 cash bonus for taking on the role.
As Kalajian and other key executives move to improve Beyond Meat’s accounting processes, management also faces ongoing slumps in both sales and profits. Gross profit for the third quarter ended Sept. 27 fell by about half to $7.2 million, according to earnings results.
The company’s stock has continued to trade for less than $1 a share since falling 76% last year, drawing increased scrutiny from shareholders. Law firms Pomerantz and Bleichmar Fonti & Auld recently announced an investigation into claims of securities fraud by the company or its executives after several stock price declines last year, and asked investors to join a potential class action lawsuit against the alternative meat provider, according to a recent press release.
Meanwhile, in November, Beyond Meat was ordered to pay nearly $39 million in damages to Sonate Corporation in a trademark infringement lawsuit, according to a report from Bloomberg Law at the time.
Beyond Meat did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
