Avon Products Inc., the global beauty company, said it has begun a

Avon Products Inc., the global beauty company, said it has begun a search to replace chief executive Andrea Jung, who will remain as chairman. Jung has attracted the ire of investors because of slumping sales and a federal probe about whether the company broke bribery laws overseas.

Jung will be named executive chairman beginning in the new year, Avon said Tuesday, adding that Jung will work with the board to find a replacement.

“The stock has been cut in half this year,” Ali Dibadj, analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said. “The trust between investors and management has been severed. There have been a few times where expectations have been laid out there and have not been met.”

Jung has been Avon’s CEO since 1999 and is credited with helping to grow the company in the late 1990s and early 2000s, as it continued to expand, bringing the prospect of a career or even just some extra pocket money to women from South Africa to South Korea.

But in the past several years, Avon has turned in poor performances in key markets such as Brazil and Russia, poured tens of millions of dollars into its international bribery investigation and struggled to stem declines in a sluggish U.S. market.

Avon shares have fallen 44 percent this year.

Avon stock has taken off after this announcement! wow!

See our interview with Andrea Jung in 2010.

via newswire and reuters