Natrol Reinventing Company

Natrol Reinventing Company

CHATSWORTH, Calif.Elliott Balbert, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Natrol Inc., announced sweeping changes to its corporate operations in an attempt to reinvent the company. We cannot allow modest revenue growth with break-even earnings to be an acceptable outcome for our company, said Balbert, who founded Natrol in 1980. We will completely reinvent ourselves and become the most respected, trusted supplement company in the industry.

The restructuring includes changes in the roles of several key executives. Jon Denis, president of the Prolab sports fitness division, will now be Natrols corporate vice president of sales. Anthony Raissen, president of the Tamsol direct-response product group, is the new vice president of alternative sales. Dennis Griffin, president of the raw materials group Essentially Pure Ingredients, will serve as vice president of ingredient sales/contract manufacturing and director of corporate manufacturing.

In the final personnel move, Marc Meyers, Ph.D., joined the company in the position of vice president of technology and product development. For the first time in Natrols history, this position will report directly to the CEO. This is a signal to all that Natrol must and will develop into the industrys product leader, Balbert said. [Meyers] will be responsible for building the product development area in upcoming months and the company has set no cap on how large or how much support will be assigned to this key function.

On the operations side, Balbert said the company will restructure all operational functions by the end of 2003. As part of this move, Prolab will move all functions except warehousing and distribution from its Connecticut location to Natrols California headquarters.

Natrol (www.natrol.com) has had a tough time in recent years, posting a net loss of $6.1 million in FY02 and a net loss of $20.3 million in FY01. Its 1Q03 results, reported May 15, showed increases in sales ($19.2 million), and an improvement in net loss ($.01 per share lost) over 1Q02. While operating expenses also rose, the company attributed the increase to start-up costs for its Annasa multi-level marketing business.