It's been a decent, if unspectacular, day for ASX shares so far this Thursday. At the time of writing, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has gained 0.24%. But let's talk about what's going on with Adairs Ltd (ASX: ADH) shares.

Adairs shares are having a horrid day. The ASX retail share closed at $1.98 a share yesterday afternoon. But this morning, those same shares opened at $1.91 and are currently trading 2% lower at $1.94 apiece.

This drop in the Adairs share price comes after the homewares retailer announced a big leadership change.

ASX retail share plunges as CEO moves on

In an ASX filing released this morning, Adairs revealed that its long-time managing director and CEO, Mark Ronan, has decided to move on from the company. Ronan has been at Adairs for 17 years and at the helm for eight. He has led the company for the entirety of its life as a public ASX stock.

His departure is not imminent, with Ronan planning on staying in the CEO role "into 2025", which Adairs stated gives the company time to find a suitable successor.

Here's what Ronan told investors about his decision:

Adairs has been a large part of my life for nearly two decades and I feel that the time has come to make a change, consider what the future holds, and pursue new opportunities.

This was not an easy decision and I will certainly miss the friendship, support and passion of our team, who have been and always will be critical to the Group's success. Recognising this, my focus is on managing the Company and supporting our team through the transition period ahead.

It appears Adairs' management was sorry to hear of Ronan's decision, with chair Kate Spargo adding, "After significant discussion, we have accepted and understand Mark's decision".

Given the reaction of the Adairs share price today, it seems that investors are also disappointed to see Ronan go.

This announcement comes just a week after the company dropped its full-year earnings for the 2024 financial year. As we covered at the time, investors didn't like what they saw. Adairs reported a 4.3% drop in total sales for FY2024 to $594.4 million, with statutory net profits after tax also falling 17.8% to $31.1 million.

Saying that, the company did boost its annual dividends by 50% to 12 cents per share.

Adairs share price snapshot

Adairs shares have been on a bit of a rollercoaster in recent years after spiking during the pandemic back in 2021.

The company reached heights of almost $5 a share back then but has since returned to earth. Even so, Adairs shares remain up 8.6% over 2024 to date and 31.4% over the past 12 months.

At the current stock price, this ASX retail share trades on a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 10.83, with a dividend yield of 6.2%.