Van Houtte, the privately owned Montreal-based gourmet coffee distributor, has hired company veteran Gérard Geoffrion as the new CEO and appointed a new president for its retail operations to speed up expansion of the Van Houtte brand outside Quebec.
Geoffrion, a 13-year veteran of the company, succeeds Jean-Yves Monette, who becomes chairman after five years as CEO, Van Houtte announced Monday.
The company also said Sylvain Toutant, 45, is joining Van Houtte as president of retail, with a plan to speed up expansion of the Van Houtte brand in North America.
“We are very pleased with the continuity of this management change given Gerard’s previous key role within the company for more than a decade,” said Michael Klein, a director of Van Houtte and president of Littlejohn & Co. LLC, the Connecticut fund which acquired the company last year.
Van Houtte serves three million cups of coffee each day at some 80,000 offices in Canada and the United States. This accounts for two-thirds of its business. The remaining one-third is in grocery retail, primarily in its Quebec base and in Ontario.
Geoffrion said the company wanted to develop at a faster pace in Ontario and the rest of Canada, and hopes to expand its coffee services business in the U.S.
Van Houtte is the Canadian leader in the coffee services business, holding 50% market share. In the highly fragmented U.S. market it trails Aramark as No. 2, with just 3% market share.
Toutant, meanwhile, will oversee the company’s sales to grocery stores, as well as the roasting and cafe bistro operations, Van Houtte said.
Toutant had previously been president of the former Réno-Dépôt home hardware chain and the Quebec liquor commission.
Littlejohn paid $615 million last summer to acquire Van Houtte and made a number of commitments related to Van Houtte’s management, operations, growth, employees and other operations to secure Industry Canada approval for the deal.
Littlejohn of Greenwich, Conn., agreed in May 2007 to pay $25 per share for Van Houtte and assume $58 million in net debt. The total transaction was $600 million plus $15 million in fees.
Van Houtte was founded in 1919 as an importer of specialty coffees from Europe. The Van Houtte family carried on the business after the founder died in 1944. It took on management partners in 1980 before going public in 1987.
