o
Message from our CEO continued
It is energizing to see all the
brands in the Ahold Delhaize
family - including our two
joint ventures, Super Indo and
Pingo Doce - coming together
in this report, with all their
local color. This is who we are:
this is Ahold Delhaize.”
Overview
Business review
Governance
Financials
Investors
Ahold Delhaize Annual Report 2016
All the best,
We’ve had several leadership changes
during the year that I’d like to mention.
James McCann resigned from his role as
Chief Operating Officer Ahold USA in order
to move out of full-time executive work.
I would like to thank him for his contributions
to driving our eCommerce strategy during
his time with Ahold in Europe and mobilizing
the transformation at Ahold USA. Kevin Holt,
former COO of Delhaize America, has brought
his strong leadership skills and extensive U.S.
retail experience to succeed James in this
role. I would also like to thank our Deputy CEO
and Chief Integration Officer Frans Muller
for taking on an additional responsibility as
Acting Chief Operations Officer (ad interim) of
Delhaize America. I’m confident we have the
right balance of experience and capabilities
across our leadership teams to successfully
take the company into the future.
I would like to thank the Supervisory Board,
and the Chairman, Mats Jansson, and Vice
Chairman, Jan Hommen, in particular, for their
unwavering support throughout the merger
process. It’s been a pleasure working together
with them as a team from the start.
1 Total net consumer sales growth, including bol.com plaza sales and excluding the impact of week 53.
Number also corrected for exchange rate impact.
This year, a number of our great local brands
are marking important milestones: Delhaize
celebrates 150 years of serving customers,
Albert Heijn is close behind with 130 years, and
Food Lion in the U.S. turns 60. We are proud of
our brands’ longevity and heritage, but even
more so of the fact that they reinvent and
transform themselves every day to stay fresh
and relevant to customers around the world.
Powerful branding today is more fundamental
than ever for a retailer’s long-term profitability
and our businesses have already made
great strides to create truly brand-centric
organizations. Our omni-channel offering is
helping us capture the loyalty of customers
who increasingly want to shop on their
own terms, and we are pursuing our strong
ambitions to win online. Our merger gives us
the opportunity to capture more synergies
so we can continue to invest in innovations
- we are on track with our goal to generate
€500 million in net synergies in 2019.
In closing, I have been in retail all my life and
one thing I’ve learned is that it’s about people.
The interaction we have with customers and
the role we can play in helping people live
healthier lives, in providing connection to and
supporting our communities, and in leading
this industry, thrills me more than ever. It is
energizing to see all the brands in the Ahold
Delhaize family - including our two joint
ventures, Super Indo and Pingo Doce - coming
together in this report, with all their local color.
This is who we are: this is Ahold Delhaize.
Looking forward to the year ahead, we
expect deflation in the United States
for the first quarter of 2017 to continue,
with resilient volume trends driven by our
strategic initiatives to improve the customer
proposition. We confirm our target for 2017
of realizing an additional €200 million in
net synergies, incremental to underlying
operating income, bringing the total merger
synergies to €220 million by the end of 2017.
We expect free cash flow for the year 2017
to be €1.6 billion, after €1.8 billion of capital
expenditure. In January 2017, we started a
€1 billion share buy-back that will be carried
out throughout this year.
I also want to thank customers across all our
great local brands for being the reason we
come to work with energy and drive - for
giving compliments, constructive criticism,
and the chance to serve and delight them
every day. And, of course, I would like to thank
our shareholders, who have supported us this
year as we made one of the biggest moves in
our companies’ history; we appreciate your
confidence in our vision for the future.
I want to thank our associates for their focus
in 2016: for keeping our day-to-day business in
all our brands thriving while at the same time
delivering a smooth start to our new company.
They showed their amazing dedication to the
company and, most importantly, to customers
and communities.
Dick Boer
Chief Executive Officer
