The Road to Recovery
At the end of 2003 Royal Ahold was set on the road to recovery with a three-year financing plan and a strategy to restore value. This was necessary after a difficult year that saw major changes in company leadership as a result of investigations by regulatory authorities and Ahold’s own auditors. The period of expansion through acquisition was replaced by a more focused approach that enabled the company to move on under the direction of Anders Moberg. He took over as President and Chief Executive Officer when his appointment was approved by shareholders at their General Meeting in September.
In February, Ahold announced an expectation of significantly reduced earnings and a need for financial statements for previous years to be restated, largely due to an overstatement of income by U.S. Foodservice. Resignations included Ahold CEO Cees van der Hoeven and Chief Finance Officer Michiel Meurs, along with Jim Miller, President/CEO and other senior figures at U.S. Foodservice in May and Tops Markets’ President/CEO, Frank Curci in June.
Prior to February’s announcement, Ahold had already streamlined back-office operations at four U.S. retail companies: Giant-Carlisle, Tops, BI-LO and Bruno's.
Plans to divest non-core businesses and significantly underperforming core business were stepped up during the year. These included operations in Indonesia and South America, Golden Gallon in the U.S. and two Polish hypermarkets.