Hilton Food Group reveals board changes

Naish joined Hilton in 2007 as a non-executive director after retiring from the chairmanship of Arla Foods UK and was elected chairman in 2010. He is being replaced by Hilton non-executive director Colin Smith, who joined the company in 2010 and previously held a number of leading roles.

Two new appointments have also been made to the Hilton board. Christine Cross, a trained food scientist, who has extensive experience in retail, including at Tesco, where she worked on own-label development and sourcing, Next and Woolworths (Australia), joins the board. Jon Worby has also joined. He comes with executive experience at Uniq, Genus as group finance director and Cranswick, where he was a non-executive director.

 ‘Well-invested factories’​

“The group has a distinctive but effective business model made up of well-invested factories engaged in effective and efficient retail meat packing operations for a concentrated client base in each of its markets,”​ said Shore Capital analysts Clive Black and Darren Shirley, who welcomed the new appointments.

“The group has strong customer focus and relations, most particularly with Ahold, which has just merged with Delhaize, Coop Danmark, ICA in Scandinavia, Tesco where self-improvement should benefit Hilton and Woolworth Australia, where a particularly innovative capital light model has been created.”​

Strong balance sheet​

Black and Shirley added that Hilton had a strong balance sheet that they expected to be both a resource to sustain investment in the business as well as reassuring investors about its strength and solvency.

“We welcome the ongoing evolution of the board and anticipate that continuity will very much be the order of the day for Robert Watson OBE​ [Hilton’s chief executive] and his executive team,”​ they added.

Shore Capital issued a ‘buy’ recommendation on Hilton Food Group, which will report its 2015 preliminary results on March 31.