Stan steps aside after a decade at the helm of Kerry Group

When Stan McCarthy took over as chief executive on 1 January 2008, Kerry had sales of €4.8bn, was making profits of €377m with margins of just under 8%. Its business was split two-thirds Europe, one-quarter Americas with less than 10% in Asia-Pacific. Its Kerry Foods consumer division accounted for one-third of sales and just over a quarter of profits. Its ingredients business made up the other two-thirds of sales and delivered almost three-quarters of the profits.

This week, as he announced the group’s results for 2016, and his retirement, Stan McCarthy is leaving the company and its shareholders in a much better position than a decade earlier.

With sales of €6.1bn, McCarthy has added €1.3bn to the top line over the last nine years. This expansion by almost a third, has not come at the expense of margin or profits. Operating profits have almost doubled from €377m to €682m, margins have expanded to more than 11% and the dividend has tripled.

What has been remarkable is that over that time, growth has been steady and consistent. McCarthy has slowly shifted the company, through acquisitions and organic growth, to a point where its ingredients and flavours division accounts for 80% of the business, with consumer foods making up the balance. It has acquired almost 100 businesses spanning the US, Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa in the past two decades.

At the time McCarthy was appointed, he was head of the Americas business. This was seen as the big area for growth at that time. And it has since proven this. The Americas business has doubled in size to account for 42% of sales (€2.6bn), while the Asia-Pacific business has grown rapidly at more than 10% per annum since 2007 to now account for 12% of sales.

McCarthy was the third chief executive of the Kerry Group. When he took over, the share price was €22. Today the share price is just shy of €73 and has a market capitalisation of over €12bn. With the co-op owning 13.7%, it values Kerry co-op share at almost €1.7bn.

Following a number of spin-outs over the last decade, farmers have not only seen the value of their investment rise but also received large dividends and, despite owning a smaller percentage, the value of their co-op has increased.

Kerry’s global success has owed much to its management’s disciplined strategic planning, strong corporate culture and its focus on the manufacturing and sale of mainly high added-value technology-based ingredients and flavours to many of the world’s leading food, drink and food service multinationals.

The ingredient of success that sets Kerry apart from its competitors or peers is its steady, consistent and disciplined approach to strategic planning, understated leadership style along with its global mindset. To a greater or lesser extent, the group’s leaders and senior management team share the predominant Kerry characteristic – the will to win.

Looking back over the history of performance of the company, the one thing that stands out is consistent delivery of growth in terms of sales, margins and returns. Kerry has been true to its mission and has become a true global leader in taste and nutrition. This is a huge achievement for a company that began in a rented caravan in a muddy field in Listowel in 1972.

While McCarthy may be remembered as the CEO who spent €1bn on acquisitions in a single year, it may be the One Kerry programme that becomes his legacy. This transformed the fragmented operating model arising from Kerry’s acquisitions under one system and is seen today as a key competitive advantage for the group.

As he moves on to pastures new, his boots will be filled by CEO designate Edmond Scanlon, who is a product of the Kerry graduate programme and has spent a career learning the business in various functions and countries around the world.

While Scanlon has undoubtedly secured this position on merit, his appointment could be viewed as strategic, just as McCarthy’s was 10 years ago.

In 2008 Kerry had its eye on growing its business in America, which it has delivered. Today it sees future growth coming from Asia, and has appointed a man with deep experience in that region.

What’s remarkable is the talent that the Kerry group continues to develop out of its home county. Scanlon will be the fourth consecutive Kerryman to lead this global business in its 45-year history.

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