KEY POINTS:
Restaurant Brands is still without a chief executive nearly six months after the departure of Vicki Salmon.
Chairman Ted Van Arkel said the appointment process had taken longer than expected due to timing clashes and illness among directors.
But he said yesterday he expected to appoint a replacement this month.
Salmon left Restaurant Brands in March as the company was negotiating with unnamed buyers. The company called off the sales process with no result in May.
It said that question marks over its ownership had been too disruptive for the business.
That led to the share price reaching $1.08 cents.
It subsequently slipped below 90 cents and was yesterday trading at 85 cents.
The company - which operates KFC, Starbucks and Pizza Hut in New Zealand - is also facing a slump in its pizza sales.
Commercial manager Russel Creedy has been acting CEO since Salmon resigned. Van Arkel declined to comment about upcoming second quarter results, but he doubted that the televised Rugby World Cup competition would boost pizza sales.
Salmon had previously pointed to television rugby as a key factor in pizza sales.
But yesterday van Arkel said there were no expectation of a big boost in sales as a result of the competition.
Many of the games would be played in the early hours of the morning.
"I am not sure how many people will be ordering pizza for breakfast," said van Arkel.
He said the company had been more stable with the removal of a potential sale.
In the first quarter to May 29 same store sales across the group were up 4.4 per cent.
KFC enjoyed 10.6 per cent same store sales growth due in part to the makeover of stores.
Pizza Hut dropped 8 per cent amid increased competition from Hell Pizza and Domino's Pizza. Starbucks Coffee was up 2 per cent.
