ANALYSIS:Despite insisting that he would stay until retirement, DCC chief's departure was swift, writes ARTHUR BEESLEY

JIM FLAVIN'S storied career at the helm of DCC came to abrupt halt last night, barely a week after he insisted that he would carry on as executive chairman until his scheduled retirement in July 2010. That his determination to stand firm in the face of the Supreme Court ruling until the last had the imprimatur of his entire board may yet create problems for those he leaves behind.

Some 10 months into his doughty battle against the inevitable, his departure was swift in the end. It was only six days ago that the Irish Association of Investment Managers (IAIM) called for his head.

That statement from institutional investors was without precedent - and was seen in many quarters as a public declaration of no confidence in Mr Flavin from the very heart of the business establishment.

A number of informed observers expressed the view that the investment community had given DCC ample scope in the months since the Supreme Court ruling last summer to put its house in order, but to no avail.

The IAIM statement was enough, apparently, to prompt an immediate rethink by Mr Flavin, who has dominated DCC for more than three decades.

When the company's board met on Monday to discuss IAIM's rebuke, he is understood to have told his fellow directors that he was considering resignation. Pending his decision, the board opted not to conclude its consideration of the situation.

What finally prompted his departure was word yesterday from Paul Appleby, the director of corporate enforcement, that he had initiated the process asking the High Court to appoint inspectors to examine DCC and the subsidiaries involved in the illegal sale of Fyffes shares in 2000 by Mr Flavin.

At an emergency board meeting, Mr Flavin resigned forthwith. The DCC board, which is taking legal advice, said it was not in a position last evening to make any further comment on Mr Appleby's move.

Mr Flavin was a Fyffes director and held insider information about a deterioration in Fyffes' business that was not freely available to the market when he sold DCC's stake in the company. Fyffes shares fell in value after it issued a profit warning, but not before Mr Flavin made a profit of some €85 million for DCC on the sale of its interest in the company.

After an ex-parte application by Mr Appleby yesterday, the High Court court set a hearing of his case for June 9th. The case is likely to examine the tax treatment of the Fyffes share sales by DCC, which were routed through a Dutch-resident company so as not to be liable to tax in Ireland on the profit.

In her original High Court ruling on the case, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy had rejected outright DCC's contention that it was the Dutch company, Lotus Green, and not Mr Flavin that executed the share trades.

Needless to say, in statements since then, DCC had not cited that aspect of the Laffoy ruling when selectively invoking the most favourable parts of the High Court judgment in the case brought by Fyffes in defence of Mr Flavin.

While the litigation and a settlement of the case has cost DCC a total of €50 million, the company portrayed his execution of illegal share trades as an unwitting breach of civil law that did not involve any intentional wrongdoing on his part.

That was the argument last Tuesday when his fellow directors reiterated their unqualified support for him for a fourth time.

In advance of that statement from his board, he asked that it be examined "objectively, dispassionately and carefully". The fact remains, however, that any objective analysis of the case suggests he should have gone months ago and should have been held to account by his board.

He has now been replaced as chairman of DCC by Michael Buckley, the former AIB chief who has always insisted that neither justice nor fairness would have been served if the board had sacked him after the Supreme Court ruling.

Unwavering at all times in his support for Mr Flavin, it was Mr Buckley in his capacity as senior independent director who had responsibility to engage with shareholders who have concerns that cannot be addressed through the executive chairman.

It should be noted that Mr Flavin was not pushed from the chairman's seat. There was no heave, no quiet word in the ear that it would be better to go with dignity before the firm he spent his life building was overwhelmed by the situation.

No indeed. Jim Flavin had the support of his loyal directors until the very end.

The board must now answer to Mr Appleby. From their unanimous declarations, it is clear that each of DCC's non-executive and executive directors believed Mr Flavin could escape the consequences of a finding of insider trading. How wrong they were. Now the entire strategy of brazening the situation out has blown up in its face.

Albeit in a civil court - the highest in the land - Mr Flavin was found guilty as charged. That his board maintained this should be without consequence for him and that there wasn't a single word of protest from the business community at large until last week are perhaps the most extraordinary aspects of this unseemly affair.

DCC statement

THE BOARD of DCC plc announces that its executive chairman, Mr Jim Flavin, has resigned with immediate effect. Mr Flavin informed the board today that, due to the continuing uncertainty arising from the outcome of the litigation with Fyffes plc, it was in the interests of the company and its shareholders for him to resign as executive chairman and a director of DCC plc.

Mr Flavin told the board: "While I am resigning, I firmly hold the view that I have always acted honourably and in what I believe to be the best interests of the company and all its shareholders."

The board has appointed Mr Michael Buckley as non-executive chairman with immediate effect.

Mr Buckley joined the board in September 2005, since then he has been senior independent director.

Mr Tommy Breen, who was appointed group managing director on 1 July 2007, has been appointed chief executive with immediate effect.

Mr Michael Buckley said "Jim Flavin has been the driving force within DCC plc, having founded the company in 1976, and has developed it into one of the most successful companies in Ireland."

The board of DCC plc is focused on continuing the development of DCC in the interests of its shareholders.