Baltimore chief quits after share price plunges

The founder and chief executive of Irish Internet security company, Baltimore Technologies, resigned with immediate effect today after a collapse in the firm’s share price.

Fran Rooney quit ‘‘to pursue other interests’’ following a series of increasingly poor performances by his company which has seen the value of its share slump by 90% since January.

Earlier this year the Internet security firm shed 250 jobs and last week looked toward another ‘‘significant number’’ of redundancies.

Baltimore was formerly listed on both the Nasdaq Composite in New York and the FTSE 100 list of leading share performers in London, but was seen as a casualty of the downturn in the international hi-tech sector.

Baltimore’s chief financial officer, Paul Sanders, was named today as interim chief executive.

The shares rose by 9% to 20¾p on the London Stock Exchange after the news of Mr Rooney’s departure.