New Zealand fresh produce exporter Turners & Growers (T&G) is expected to part company with its chief executive Geoff Hipkins this week, following an apparent breakdown in his working relationship with members of the group's senior management team.
Eurofruit understands that Hipkins, who joined T&G last April and recently led a radical restructuring that saw the dismissal of 13 members of its management team, will leave the company with immediate effect. Philipp Wahl, currently chief operating officer, is expected to take temporary charge while a replacement is sought.
T&G refused to comment on the news, but was set to make an official announcement to the New Zealand Exchange once it had negotiated Hipkins' exit package – a process being led from Auckland by deputy chairman Sir John Anderson and due to be concluded in the next 24 hours. A decision could therefore come as early as the morning of Thursday 7 March, New Zealand time.
The precise reason for the director's departure remains unreported, but several well-placed sources indicated that Hipkins was involved in what they described as an unseemly altercation with a senior employee at T&G's European subsidiary Enzafruit New Zealand (Continent) during an evening engagement in Berlin attended by staff from T&G and associated companies following the recent Fruit Logistica trade fair.
T&G chairman Klaus Josef Lutz, who is also chief executive of the group's German majority shareholder Baywa, was not present at the time the incident is alleged to have occurred, despite having earlier attended the exhibition itself. On being informed of the alleged fracas, however, Lutz and Anderson immediately set in motion an internal investigation to determine precisely what had occurred.
Noises off
While rumours hinting at Hipkins' apparent unpopularity with some of his colleagues had been circulating for some time, he had managed to retain the full confidence of T&G's board of directors, not to mention their support for what had evidently been a major dismantling of the group's management team following his own root-and-branch review of the business.
Speculation that a board-level motion to declare a lack of confidence in Hipkins had been narrowly defeated late last year was dismissed by both Hipkins and Lutz as mere troublemaking on the part of recently dismissed and apparently disgruntled former employees. In December,Lutz underlined the T&G board's support for Hipkins, declaring any idea of doubts over his performance to be 'an absolute lie'.
Even as recently as 6 February, the opening day of Fruit Logistica, Eurofruit spoke to Lutz, Hipkins and Enzafruit managing director Tony Fissette, who together insisted the company was united in its determination to follow through with Hipkins' reorganisation plans. But support for Hipkins has, it appears, been seriously eroded by what is alleged to have happened in Berlin.
Hipkins could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
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