Pick n Pay CEO resigns

During the search for a new CEO, Pick n Pay chairman Gareth Ackerman will move to executive chairman responsible for company strategy. Deputy CEO Richard van Rensburg will assume day-to-day operational responsibility. The search will include internal candidates and external candidates, both local and international.

Badminton has been with the company for 32 years, five as CEO and six before that as Retail MD. "When I came in as CEO, we became singularly focused on the transformation of Pick n Pay. This transformation was centred on winning with our customers. It included improving our product offer and our stores which necessitated large investments in our operations, particularly the implementation of SAP and centralised distribution. We also converted Score to Pick n Pay. The most important and significant changes necessary to transform Pick n Pay have now either been made, or are well advanced in their implementation.

"I feel that I've now completed what I set out to do and looking ahead, it's an appropriate time for the board to select a new CEO, and with the executive team, to continue rolling out and embedding the changes the business needs to make.

"[W]ith the business firmly on the path to recovery, I think that it's a good time for me to take a sabbatical to spend some quality time with my family and my bicycle."

Said Ackerman: "Nick had an incredibly tough job to do. It's difficult enough transforming a company of our size and scale to the degree required, but to run the business at the same time and right in the middle of what has been the most serious recession in decades - and with an international competitor coming in - was particularly tough.

"With his team, he has executed the turnaround extremely well, and during his tenure, there have been a number of particularly notable achievements and milestones which he led.

"I would like to thank Nick for his extraordinarily hard work and he has the very best wishes from all of us at Pick n Pay."