Blog Publisher’s comment:
Well, perhaps Office Depot/Max will begin
offering burgers and roast beef sandwiches to lure customers to its copy
centers!
November 13,
2013
Office Depot ODP announced that the
company has, effective immediately, appointed Roland C. Smith to become the firm’s new CEO and chairman. Roland previously served as the CEO
of Delhaize America (albeit briefly, for less than one year), but is most well known for his multiyear tenure at
Wendy’s/Arby’s, where he served in a variety of roles (including the
president and CEO position) and played a leading role in the execution of the
merger between the two companies. Additionally, Roland has served more than 10
years as director and chairman of Carmike Cinemas. We are somewhat surprised by
the pick, since we had expected that the board would choose a candidate with
direct hard-goods or multichannel retail experience. Additionally, while we
were aware th at the Board was pursuing outside candidates, we had expected
that Neil Austrian or Ravi Saligram, the former CEOs of Office Depot and
OfficeMax, respectively, would assume temporary roles to help make for a smooth
transition, so we were also surprised that both executives resigned immediately
from both the company and the board. It is uncertain whether Roland intends to
bring in his own hand-picked executive team, which could add to the existing
turnover from the merger of the two companies. Still, we believe Roland’s
integration experience will serve him well in executing the Depot-Max merger,
and we look forward to hearing more regarding his plan of action.
Liang Feng,
reporting for MorningStar Research
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment