How Pie Face Plans To Bounce Back
Can a strong international push and a bid to remove its founder from the board help the bakery franchise rise from the ashes of administration?
It has been less than a month since Pie Face entered administration and it has since survived by working out a deal with banks and creditors. But Pie Face chairman Andrew Thomson is keeping the flames of ambition alive – he wants Pie Face to not merely survive but actually thrive in the coming years.
International expansion
Thomson reveals that in order to revive Pie Face there is a need for strong international expansion. The chairman is currently living in Japan and is working with a Japanese partner to open stores in Japan in May 2015.
In developing a stronger Pie Face proposition to the discerning Japanese consumer, Thomson says he is taking into account the aspects of Japanese cuisine that can be adopted to the Pie Face menu. He is also factoring in local factors such as the hot Japanese summer that may help Pie Face develop more compelling products.
Thomson believes that international franchise deals are not merely financial transactions but are vital opportunities to strengthen the currently weakened Pie Face brand.
With industry veterans David Owens and Kevin Waite bringing extensive management expertise to the brand, Thomson expects the international push as well as the domestic revitalisation to flourish.
Ousting Homschek
Aside from a robust growth plan, Thomson also argues that founder Wayne Homschek would have to resign from the board if the brand hopes to succeed in this new direction. The bid to remove Homschek will be put to a vote among shareholders and Thomson, along with other senior executives, are making the case that Homschek is no longer a right fit for the franchise’s new direction.
Thomson says the move to oust Homschek is meant to ensure that he no longer has anything to do with the business. Thomson says the board feels there is a need for a complete departure from the old business model under Homschek, which accumulated too much debt. Thomson asserts that the stores were starved of working capital and could not even market effectively.
Homschek has declined to comment on the bid to oust him from the company he founded, but shareholders and former executives have questioned the logic behind this move.
Self-described “long-standing” Pie Face shareholder Matthew Howison wrote a letter in which the Sydney Morning Herald reported, asking the board to reconsider their intention to remove Homschek as a director. Howison says it would hurt Pie Face more than help it to not have the founder on board as it tries to regain its footing and credibility.
In the same Sydney Morning Herald Story, former Pie Face executive Ben Macpherson also disagrees with the bid to oust Homschek, saying the business will lose a vital piece of industry advantage given the founder’s more than a decade of industry experience.
