ANDREW RAMSDEN SEEKS NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOLLOWING SUCCESS AT DBC FOODSERVICE

Andrew Ramsden, chief executive officer of DBC Foodservice’s parent company WF Group Holdings Limited since 2007, has decided to leave the business at the end of its current financial year on 31 March 2010, following completion of his plans to simplify the business and restore it to profitability and growth.

Andrew Ramsden explained: “I came in to sort out a troubled business that was suffering major losses of both money and customers. The first part of the solution was the sale of Woodward Foodservice to Brake Brothers in 2008. The second phase has been a complete transformation in the performance of DBC Foodservice, which has not lost a major customer in the last two years and has gained accounts generating an additional £35 million of annualised turnover in the last 12 months alone. DBC’s results for the year to March 2009 were the best in its 108-year history, and we have successfully built on those in the current financial year.

“DBC gained financially solid and supportive new owners when WF Group Holdings was acquired by WPD Limited in April 2009, and the management was significantly strengthened by the appointment of new sales and marketing, purchasing, strategy and finance directors in September 2009. DBC now has an absolutely first rate top team led by managing director Chris Horne, who has worked alongside me in that role since 2007. They are well equipped to take advantage of the significant growth opportunities we have identified as the business continues to develop its high street customer base.

“I feel that the job I was recruited to do is now complete, and that the time has come to seek new opportunities. I have every confidence in the continued success of Chris and his team, and wish them well.”

Tarsem Dhaliwal, chairman of DBC Foodservice, added: “Andrew has performed absolutely brilliantly in sorting out DBC Foodservice and in doing so he has provided a textbook example of how to work yourself out of a job. DBC Foodservice has been transformed out of all recognition in the last three years and is poised to develop still further as the best service-orientated foodservice business in the UK, offering a comprehensive, multi-temperature product range to customers from both the public and private sectors right across the country.

“Andrew will leave us with our sincere thanks and highest recommendation, and we wish him every success in finding and tackling a new challenge commensurate with his talents.”