Lionsgate CFO James Keegan to retire after 25 years with company

Lionsgate’s chief financial officer, James Keegan, a 25-year veteran of the company, is retiring and will be succeeded by James Barge, the former CFO of Viacom.

Keegan, 55, will retire on Oct. 1 and will stay on as a consultant until Jan. 3 to help with the transition, the company said Friday.

Barge, who will report to Lionsgate Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer, had already been working with Lionsgate as a consultant. He served as Viacom’s CFO from 2010 to 2012 and earlier worked at Time Warner Inc. for 13 years.

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Keegan “will be missed,” Feltheimer said in a statement. “When he decided to retire, we were fortunate that Jimmy Barge was already working with us on a number of financial initiatives and was available to hit the ground running as our new CFO.”

Shares of Lionsgate fell 4.7% to about $33.80 in midday trading Friday. The stock has more than doubled in the last year for the company behind recent hit films such as “The Hunger Games” and “The Twilight Saga.”

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