As expected, Richard Lenormand has been appointed chairman and CEO of StudioCanal to replace Vincent Grimond who has resigned following his appointment as senior executive vice president, operations and finance, at Universal Studios Group.

The board of directors at StudioCanal unanimously appointed Lenormand. The 38 year-old was most recently senior vice president, finance, at Canal Plus Group. He joined Canal in 1990 in the finance department and was named vice president, finance in 1997 before senior vice president in December 1999.

Grimond will resign his seat as director at StudioCanal; he will now be working alongside studio chief Ron Meyer.

StudioCanal announced Lenormand's appointment at the same time as reporting a 14.4% increase in 2000 revenues from Euros339m to Euros387.7m.