Ahold Delhaize's deputy CEO, Frans Muller, is poised to take over from Dick Boer at the head of the retail giant, according to newspaper reports.
Belgian daily De Standaard reports that Muller, who served as the president and CEO of Delhaize Group from 2013 until the 2016 merger with Ahold, could potentially be named as the new head of Ahold Delhaize as early as this week.
Boer, in turn, would be named chairman of the group's Supervisory Board, according to the paper. It has not disclosed its sources.
Ahold Delhaize chose not to comment when contacted by ESM. The retailer announces its full year trading results this coming Wednesday, 28 February.
No Change In Strategy
Commenting on the rumours, analyst Bruno Monteyne of Bernstein Research said that a change of leadership wouldn't necessarily lead to a major strategic shift or impact on current merger integration.
"If Dick were Chairman and Frans CEO, we wouldn't expect a major strategic shift for the business," he said. "Execution on the merger integration and realisation of synergies would not be impacted, in our view."
However, Monteyne added that the rumoured change may be a signal that more US merger and acquisition activity may be on the cards, with Muller recently holding the title of interim CEO of the group's former Delhaize operations in the US
"We believe the key to success in the US market will increasingly be scale and we believe a sensible way to achieve this would be a merger of Ahold Delhaize's US business with Kroger," Monteyne said.
"Frans steered Delhaize into the merger with Ahold and may be the right person to execute another merger and see the group through a second US integration."
Curriculum Vitae
A Dutchman, Muller has served as the deputy chief executive and chief integration officer of Ahold Delhaize since July 2016.
Prior to the merger, he served as president and CEO of Delhaize Group, and continued to lead the Delhaize America business, which includes the Food Lion and Hannaford brands, from October 2016 until December 2017.
Prior to joining Delhaize Group, Frans had been with the German retailer Metro AG for more than 15 years, including as CEO of Metro Cash & Carry, which he led from 2008 to 2013.
He also previously worked at KLM Cargo, in various management and executive positions in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Vienna and Singapore.
He is the current president of the European Retail Round Table (ERRT), an organisation which represents companies from the European retail sector.
Immediate Challenges
Should he take over as CEO, De Standaard anticipates something of a baptism of fire at the business; its share price has not risen since the merger was completed, while its US business was rocked last year by the news that Amazon was taking over Whole Foods.
However, the business would also benefit from a defined management structure.
'With Boer as chairman of the supervisory board and Muller as CEO, there would be more unity of management towards the 350,000 employees of the group,' the paper suggests.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
