Tiger Brands Faces Tough Challenge to Clean Image

Johannesburg, Oct 03, 2008 (Business Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- TBLMY | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- DIVERSIFIED food group Tiger Brands yesterday admitted it had a tough task cleaning up its image, which has been tainted by price fixing scandals involving senior executives.

CEO Peter Matlare, who last week released excerpts of a voluminous report produced after a probe into price fixing at health products supplier Adcock Ingram, said he had received the support of shareholders to introduce tougher measures to ensure all operating companies adhered to the group's corporate governance rules.

The probe by advocate Johnny Blou confirmed that two former directors, Haydn Franklin and Mike Norris, as well as company secretary Ian Isdale, knew that the now-listed Adcock Ingram was involved in price fixing, for which it received a fine of R53m.

Tiger Brands also fell foul of the competition authorities and was last year fined R98,8m after it admitted that it colluded with rivals to fix the price of bread.

"Our challenge is to clean up our reputation. It will take us a while because we have to regain the confidence of everybody, from the shareholders and the market to our customers," Matlare said.

He said critical lessons had been learnt, among them that the group had to apply a zero- tolerance policy to sloppy adherence to corporate governance at its operating companies, and to ensure that an independent, experienced executive was employed to ensure compliance with all regulatory laws.

"We have already recruited a compliance officer whose name should be announced shortly," Matlare said.

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