STUART Greenwood, the finance director of Spring Ram, was a director of two private companies that collapsed in the early 1980s.

He is facing calls for his resignation after a profits warning last week led to a sharp fall in Spring Ram's share price.

Mr Greenwood served as a director of AFM Electronics, which was compulsorily wound up in 1983, and Multipool Manufacturing, which was placed in receivership in 1982.

He was also finance director of Henry Barratt, the steel stockholding company that was floated on the Stock Exchange in May 1987 and which went into receivership last November.

The Spring Ram board is meeting later this week to decide Mr Greenwood's fate. Leading institutional shareholders believe he should take responsibility for the company's disastrous change of fortune.

Earlier this week, Spring Ram published taxable profits of pounds 26m, down from pounds 34m, and 40 per cent below what the City had been expecting.

However, Mr Greenwood is digging in his heels. Close observers believe he is refusing to resign and will only leave the company if he is sacked.

The same board meeting will decide the fate of Spring Ram's advisers, particularly the auditor, Arthur Andersen. Rival accountancy firms in Leeds are already preparing to pitch for the company's business if the relationship with Andersen is ended.

Investors and analysts are particularly miffed because Mr Greenwood and Bill Rooney, the chairman, made assurances in November that the company's enviable record on profits growth would continue.