Mitchells & Butlers drags its heels over CEO replacement
THE SEARCH for a new chief executive for Mitchells & Butlers is set to drag on with no fixed deadline, as the pub group struggles to attract candidates.
There will be no update on the hiring process when M&B announces its full-year numbers tomorrow, even though some analysts were expecting one. The results are forecast to show a 10 per cent drop in sales to £1.77bn with some improvement in the closing months of the year.
The troubled pub operator has drawn up only a longlist of candidates to replace interim chief executive Jeremy Blood, who left last month.
M&B declined to name either the candidates on the list or to give a time-frame for any announcement. Suggestions that chairman Bob Ivell has approached as many as 12 candidates for the role were dismissed as inaccurate. “There is a good list of candidates and the search is ongoing,” said a spokesperson.
Last week, Robin Young was promoted internally to operations director and Kevin Todd to business development director, as long-serving senior executives Amanda Coldrick, Roger Moxham and Adam Martin left the company. Each of the group’s nine brands is to have its own operations director, replacing the previous three-channel structure.