Dentsply Sirona Walter Petersohn
Dentsply Sirona’s outgoing chief commercial officer Walter Petersohn [Image courtesy of Dentsply Sirona]

Dentsply Sirona (Nasdaq:XRAY) announced that SVP and chief commercial officer Walter Petersohn is leaving the company.

Petersohn’s departure comes among a slew of exits as Dentsply handles an internal investigation into its financial practices. The Charlotte, North Carolina–based dental products and technologies company is investigating its use of incentives to sell products to distributors during the third and fourth quarters of 2021. It is looking into whether the incentives and sales impact were adequately accounted for and disclosed in SEC filings.

The board’s audit committee is also evaluating whether present and former members of the senior management used the incentives and other actions to achieve executive compensation targets.

Last week, the company appointed former BD executive Simon Campion as CEO. This came after John Groetelaars, the former Hillrom CEO, led the dental tech company since the termination of former CEO Don Casey in April. Previous CFO Jorge Gomez soon left his new job at Moderna. Dentsply then replaced chief accounting officer Ranjit Chadha earlier this month.

According to an SEC filing, Petersohn and the company mutually agreed on the separation, effective Sept. 30. Petersohn is an inactive employee for the time being but will be available for transition requests until that date.

Dentsply negotiates notes

Dentsply also recently negotiated a number of agreements with noteholders. The noteholders agreed for an extension of time for the company’s financial statements for its first and second fiscal quarters. Those quarters end March 31, 2022, and June 30, 2022, respectively.

As consideration for granting such consents, each noteholder received a consent fee equal to 0.20% (20 basis points) of the principal amount of the outstanding notes held by such holder.

This follows a notice from the Nasdaq market regarding Dentsply’s continued non-compliance. Nasdaq requires the timely filing of all periodic reports with the SEC. On Aug. 13, Dentsply submitted a new plan for compliance, requesting additional time.

Nasdaq granted an extension to Nov. 7, 2022, to regain compliance by filing the negotiated quarters on its Form 10-Q.