Now it's official: Alon Holdings Blue Square - Israel Ltd. (BSI) announced today that former Unilever Israel chairman and CEO Motti Keren has been appointed CEO of Mega Retail Ltd., the company's subsidiary operating supermarkets under different formats, from January 1, 2013.
Keren worked for Unilever for some 20 years. Most recently, he was president of Unilever Central Europe, which covers six countries.
Alon Holdings chairman and Chief Operating Decision Maker David Wiessman said, "We are pleased that Motti has agreed to join our team. We believe Mega Retail will benefit from his broad management experience."
Alon Holdings CEO Zeev Vurembrand announced this week that he would retire at the end of his current five-year term, in February 2013. The group's businesses are food retailing (the Mega chain) and fuel (Dor Alon).
Vurembrand's term at Blue Square was characterized by intensifying competition between supermarkets, and Mega's responses have only been partly successful, resulting in a steady slide in its performance. One of Vurembrand's measures was the launch of Mega Bull in December 2008 to meet competition from the discount chain of rival Shufersal Ltd. (TASE:SAE), Shufersal Deal, and independent chains.
The move into the discount segment came too late, and Mega struggled to create for itself an image of a cheap chain. This did not prevent Mega from expanding the format, until Mega Bull numbered 70 branches, which cause the group losses and depress its performance.
The Mega chain's results reached a new low in the first half of 2012, with sales down 3.6% at NIS 3.7 billion, and same store sales down 5.3%.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 22, 2012
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