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Yates Group chair and chief executive, Peter Dickson, resigned yesterday following months of dipping profits and poor sales. Dickson, whose family founded the business, and took the company to the stock market in 1994, is to be replaced by vice-chair Mike Hennessy to enable new leadership to 'drive through change and enhance the Yates's brand'. The operator of the Wine Lodge and Ha! Ha! Bar & Canteen brands issued a profit warning last September and last month reported that pre-tax profits had dropped from £15.6m to £13.8m. In a trading update yesterday, the group revealed that sales for the first three months have been impacted by a poor performance of a 'number of smaller branches' and are in line with last year. After an approach to buy the business and rumours of a management buy out, Dickson sees his resignation as the way forward: It is an appropriate juncture to hand over to Mike and the new team. I am now confident the proposed changes in the business will return significantly more value to shareholders. Proposed changes include cost reduction measures, a more efficient management structure and the disposal of some under-performing branches.
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