INTERNATIONAL. Dufry today unveiled a major internal reorganisation that sees the world’s leading travel retailer restructured into four geographic divisions, combining current divisions 1 and 2 into a new Division Europe & Africa.
Other major changes see:
- Integration of global and division commercial and corporate teams
- A major investment in sales staff and sales incentive programmes
- Reactivation of “small and medium size” M&A activities
- New members joining the Global Executive Committee and appointment of a new CFO
Dufry CEO Julián Díaz said: “In the past years, Dufry has gone through a complete transformation as a company by consolidating the industry with several acquisitions and the standardisation of the business operating model. In parallel, we have built a solid financial base allowing us to both drive further growth through acquisitions, while also returning capital to shareholders with a sustainable dividend payment.
“Going forward, we need to get even closer to the market, to respond quicker to customer needs and increase flexibility to better react to the dynamic environment. By further simplifying our organisation we will further reduce central costs and increase agility to drive customer focus and return to a strong organic growth.”
New division Europe & Africa
The current divisions Southern Europe & Africa as well as UK & Central Europe will be combined into the new division ‘Europe & Africa’ headed by Eugenio Andrades, CEO Europe, Africa and Strategy. The current divisional CEOs, Pedro J. Castro Benitez, (Southern Europe and Africa) and Fred Creighton (UK and Central Europe), will continue to lead their regions and newly report to Andrades.
The scope of the other current divisions Eastern Europe, Middle East, Asia and Australia, headed by Andrea Belardini; Latin America, headed by Rene Riedi; as well as North America, headed by the new Hudson Group CEO Roger Fordyce, will remain unchanged. All three of them will also join the Global Executive Committee.
Integration of global and divisional commercial and corporate teams
Dufry said that the integration of the global commercial and corporate teams will allow it to further increase agility and customer focus while at the same time reduce central costs at headquarter level.
“The consolidation of the global and divisional structures will allow Dufry to reduce complexity and reaction time for commercial and corporate decisions with respect to e.g. assortment, pricing policies, promotion and supply chain,” the company said. Focus will be on further alignment and coordination of commercial and corporate aspects across all geographies.
Investing into sales staff and incentive programmes
To drive customer focus and improve sales, Dufry will invest more in sales staff and the further implementation of the company’s digital E-Motion project (New Generation Stores, Reserve & Collect, Red by Dufry, Forum by Dufry) and the use of digital tools at shop level. Additionally, Dufry will introduce new incentive & reward programmes for sales staff. Both initiatives aim to forge better engagement with customers and drive organic growth.
Reassume M&A activities
Based on its solid financial structure and the resilient cash flow generation capability, Dufry said that it will reassume M&A activities this year to acquire small and medium size companies. It noted these would be “easy to integrate into the Group and allowing to further leverage the organisation and generate additional synergies at gross profit margin level”. In line with its defined capital allocation strategy, Dufry will also continue to return capital to shareholders through dividend payments.
Changes in the Global Executive Committee & appointment of new CFO
As a consequence of the reorganisation, Dufry’s Global Executive Committee (GEC) will have three new members. The Divisional CEOs, Andrea Belardini, René Riedi and the new Hudson Group CEO Roger Fordyce will newly join the GEC and report to Julián Diaz. Eugenio Andrades is already a member of the GEC and will continue to report to the CEO in his new role.
Andreas Schneiter, CFO, has resigned for personal reasons and will step down from his position on 31 March 2019. His successor will be Yves Gerster, who will join the Global Executive Committee as new CFO from 1 April 2019.
Yves Gerster started at Dufry in 2006 and has served to date as Global Treasury and SSC Director. In this role, he has been reporting directly to the CFO and has worked closely with bondholders, banks and rating agencies. Since, 2017, he is also responsible for Dufry’s financial shared services globally. He was part of the core finance team in the transformational acquisitions in 2014 and 2015 [The Nuance Group and World Duty Free -Ed] where he led the financing work-stream.
Díaz commented: ”Dufry’s Board of Directors and management would like to thank Andreas Schneiter for his outstanding commitment, dedication and performance in Dufry. Andreas joined Dufry in 2003 and since then, he contributed to transform Dufry into a leading global travel retailer. He has been instrumental in shaping and driving both, the finance and investor relation strategies and functions as part of the overall business model.
“We wish him all the best for his private life and lots of success in his future professional career. We are pleased that we have found with Yves Gerster a strong internal candidate to follow as CFO and we wish him all the best in his new role.”
