KEY POINTS:
Restaurant Brands yesterday told shareholders it had a "short-list" of 10-15 candidates to fill the chief executive role as it upgraded its full-year earnings forecast.
But the fast-food firm's directors came in for a grilling at its annual general meeting in Christchurch over the recent poor performance that has seen the company share price plummet to 87c from $1.17 in late February.
Chairman Ted van Arkel agreed the performance was "unacceptable".
But he said Restaurant Brands, which owns the KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks brands in New Zealand, had struggled largely because of a marked drop-off in its pizza business in the face of stiff competition and some "sub-optimal execution".
Speculation about a sale of the company after approaches were made by several parties had proved to be distracting, although no formal offer was ever made, van Arkel said.
Because of the potential for a sale, "management spent considerable time and effort over several months which could have been more productively spent on managing the business", he said.
"The year under review has been the most challenging in the company's history, largely because of the poor performance of Pizza Hut New Zealand and the longer-than-expected effort to quit Pizza Hut Victoria outlets."
The result was a bottom-line after-tax loss of $3.6 million in 2006-07.
Yet, despite the recent performance, the board remained optimistic about the year ahead.
Full-year net profit, excluding non-trading items, was forecast to be $9 to $10 million, compared with $6.5 million in 2006-07.
"We expect to see good gains in sales and profitability as we continue to implement a large number of significant changes to drive growth across all three of our businesses," van Arkel said.
A recruitment company had been contracted to find a new chief executive and van Arkel said the company would look at a short-list of 10-15 people on Monday to replace Vicki Salmon, who resigned suddenly in March.
He told the Business Herald the company would be looking for a person "prepared to make a difference and have an opportunity of turning a company around".
Max Smith, of the New Zealand Shareholders Association, questioned why Salmon left the role. "We have to have confidence in the board and we have reason not to have confidence in the board with the current situation."
