SALES growth at Whatman International, the separations technology group which has shed hundreds of Kent jobs over the past few years, has slowed while it has been looking for its third boss in as many years.

Two chief executives have been fired since Bob Thian became company chairman in 2002.

Tim Coombs, who was based at 20/20 business park, Allington, was said by Mr Thian to be "not up to the job".

Howard Kelly, his successor, left in November after less than 18 months in the job.

The company has been sifting through candidates and will be hoping it is third time lucky for Tim Haines.

Mr Haines, 47, has been chief executive of Astex Technology, a UK-based pharmaceutical company, for the past five years.

The past few years have seen huge changes at Whatman, once a major employer in the County Town that traces its roots back to the 18th century at Turkey Mill.

Competitive pressures and changes in the world market forced Whatman, a manufacturer of filter papers and DNA storage products, to slash its Maidstone workforce from around 900 to about 200. It now employs 730 worldwide.

It also disposed of head offices on the 20/20 business park at Allington and a paper conversion plant at Parkwood. It still owns a distribution centre at Larkfield. Company HQ is now in Brentford, while finance and IT departments are based at Springfield Mill, Maidstone.

Phil Greenhalgh. finance director, said their were no plans to cut any more jobs in Maidstone. "We are about the right level. There are no plans to either downsize or make significant investment in the site."

He said the restructuring in 2002-3 had been long overdue and reaped benefits in terms of improved performance. "We started to grow sales faster than the market and we’ve seriously improved our margins, up from 17 to 23 per cent last year."But some changes in senior sales people and a change in the CEO certainly means that we’ve not performed the way we would have like to have done. We’ve still performed well, but we probably could have done a lot better."