Tiger Brands rallies on new CEO

Tiger Brands appoints Lawrence Mac Dougall from Mondelez International as the new chief executive officer.

Johannesburg - Tiger Brands appointed Lawrence Mac Dougall from Mondelez International as the new chief executive officer of South Africa’s largest food producer following the resignation of Peter Matlare last year. Its shares rose.

His effective date of employment will be communicated by the end of March while Noel Doyle will continue to act as CEO until Mac Dougall joins the company, the Johannesburg-based maker of All Gold tomato sauce and Black Cat peanut butter said in a statement on Wednesday. Tiger Brands climbed as much as 3.1 percent and was trading 2.1 percent higher at 312 rand at 9:47 a.m. in Johannesburg

Mac Dougall will take over at a time when South African food producers have to content with rising input costs of key staples such as white corn, which has more than doubled since the start of last year due to the worst drought in more than a century.

Read also: Tiger gains on Matlare’s exit

These increases have been exacerbated by a 26 percent plunge of the rand’s value against the dollar over the period, fuelling higher prices of imports in a country where more than one in four workseekers is unemployed.

Mac Dougall is currently the executive vice president and regional president for eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa at Mondelez, Tiger Brands said. He previously served as managing director of Bromor Foods and Cadbury in South Africa.

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