Royal Unibrew fires CEO

The board of Denmark’s second largest brewer Royal Unibrew has fired CEO Paul Møller and dramatically cut the firm's growth predictions for the year.  

The Fakse-based group says it has cut its outlook for its annual results from a low of DKK 220 million before tax and special items to a minimum of DKK 180 million. After special items but before tax the company now expects to take a minimum of DKK 110 million, down from a low of DKK 170 million.  

Today Steen Weirsøe – chairman of the firm’s supervisory board – confirmed that Møller, who had been with Unibrew since his appointment in 2002, had been pushed from his post following a rough two years for the company. Weirsøe said: “We came to the conclusion that we should change the management.  

“Mr Møller made a very good job from when he started in the company from 2002 to 2006. But since 2007 and 2008 performance has been negative. The development of raw material costs, also aluminium costs, has had a negative impact which has given us some trouble in meeting our own targets.” 

Henrik Brandt will fill Møller’s shoes as CEO from November 1^st. The 53-year-old is set to stand down from his current role as managing director of medical group Unimedical at the end of the month. Until then Unibrew’s chief finance officer Ulrick Sørensen will fill the role.  

Today Sørensen told Brewers’ Guardian that this week’s decision had been inspired by the poor performance of the company over the past 18 months. In August the firm announced losses of DKK16.3 million (around $3 million) for the first half of the year.  

Sørensen said although the result – caused by restructuring costs and the closure of the Arhus Brewery at a loss of fixed assets worth DKK50 million - had been in line with expectations, the firm’s continued underperformance in the first six weeks of Q3 had forced the board’s hand in firing Møller.  

He added: “If you look at what’s happened over the last one and a half years, we’ve had developments in raw material prices and we’ve had a product efficiency project that backfired giving us a DKK50 million headache.  

“Our first half year results this year were in the region of our internal expectations but over the last month and a half we have seen that conditions were not improving, which is probably due to the general financial climate.” 

The firm’s chief markets are Northern Europe – including Scandinavia, the Baltic states and Poland – Italy and the malt beverage markets of Africa and the Caribbean. 

Sørensen added: “The good thing is that it seems we’re gaining market share in all our main markets but the markets are not moving in the right direction and this is leading to a reduction in volumes.”