Famous Brands’s Hedderwick quits

Kevin Hedderwick has resigned as a nonexecutive director of Famous Brands with immediate effect, eight months after his board appointment.

Hedderwick, who joined the company 18 years ago, stepped down as the group’s CEO in 2016 and was appointed nonexecutive director in May 2017. Darren Hele succeeded him.

After he vacated the CEO seat, Hedderwick became group strategic adviser for 12 months with the responsibility to pursue new growth opportunities, which he did by steering the ship to make seven acquisitions, including the group’s largest acquisition to date — Gourmet Burger Kitchen Restaurants in the UK.

The Famous Brands stable is home to brands such as Steers, Wakaberry and Mugg & Bean.

Fund manager at Old Mutual Warren Jervis said that while losing Hedderwick’s experience on the board would not be a good thing, perhaps the new CEO was well established and it was not necessary to have Hedderwick there to secondguess the strategy.

After a brief five months on the board of Brian Joffe’s investment holding company, Long4Life, Hedderwick resigned as chief operating officer and executive director.

The Famous Brands share price dropped as much as 2.81% after the announcement of Hedderwick’s resignation. It closed 1.19% lower at R115.

Although the board did not mention what Hedderwick’s next move was, he said it had been a privilege to be associated with Famous Brands for the past 18 years. “I wish the group every success for the future,” he said.