Valora successfully completes searches for new CEO and new Head of its Retail division

• Dr. Thomas Vollmoeller, who has gained many years of retail experience at Tchibo GmbH and has also worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Co., will take up his new duties as Valora’s CEO in June.
• Kaspar Niklaus has gained his retail experience working for most of his professional career for Migros and Coop, his latest role being that of head of Coop’s Bau+Hobby division. Mr. Niklaus will join Valora’s Group Executive Management as Head of the Group’s Retail division.

Valora CEO
Dr. Thomas Vollmoeller is 48 and was born in Germany. After reading Economics at Stuttgart’s Hohenheim University, he acquired his PhD at the St. Gallen Business School under Professor Brauchlin. Thomas Vollmoeller spent the first 10 years of his professional career working for McKinsey & Co. in Hamburg and Düsseldorf. His consultancy work at McKinsey focused on the retail and consumer goods sectors, with particular emphasis on supply chain issues. He joined Tchibo GmbH in 1997 and has held a number of positions with the firm since then. While running Tchibo direct GmbH, the firm’s mail order division, he succeeded in turning the operation around and notching up an impressive record of growth. He pioneered the division’s introduction of e-commerce and significantly strengthened its international presence. As a member of Tchibo’s group executive management, he held the post of CFO and Head of Operations from 2003 to 2005. Since 2006, Dr. Vollmoeller has managed Tchibo’s entire nonfood business, including, in particular, product management, purchasing, marketing and quality management. The businesses for which he was responsible generate turnover in excess of € 2 billion. He will take up his new duties in June.
As previously announced, Peter Wüst will remain with Valora while Thomas Vollmoeller familiarises himself with his new tasks.

Head of Valora’s Retail Division
Kaspar Niklaus, who is 40 years old and a Swiss citizen, holds a masters degree in agricultural engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Mr. Niklaus gained his retail experience working in a variety of business areas for Switzerland’s largest two retail groups. After completing his studies, he joined the Federation of Migros Co-operatives as a project manager. In 1998/1999 he acquired both MBA and Master of Business Informatics (MBI) qualifications from the Erasmus Graduate School of Business in Rotterdam. In 2000, he joined McKinsey & Co., where he worked until 2002. He then joined Coop City in Zurich as COO, a role in which he played a key part in the integration of the EPA department stores into the operations of Coop City. Since 2005, Kaspar Niklaus has run Coop’s Bau+Hobby division, based in Basel. He will take up his new duties at Valora in the next few months.

Rolando Benedick, Chairman of Valora’s Board of Directors is delighted that the Group has been able to fill these two vacancies with such well-qualified candidates. "We have appointed two recognised retail managers who also both have impressive track records in the field of organisational development. They will now devote all their skill, energy and commitment to pursuing Valora’s ambitious objectives. Valora’s Directors are convinced that with these appointments, and the newly constituted Board, the essential prerequisites for the Group to achieve long-term, sustainable success have now been met".

Valora:
Valora is an economically robust, independent trading company operating on a Europe-wide scale. The Valora Group’s three divisions – Valora Retail, Valora Media (press wholesaling) and Valora Trade (distribution of fast-moving consumer goods) – operate in 10 European countries, where they employ some 6,500 staff on a full-time equivalent basis. In 2007, the Valora Group’s net sales amounted to CHF 2 822 million.
With its 1 404 sales points, Valora Retail is a market leader in small outlet convenience retail at high-confluence locations. Valora Retail’s operations include its k kiosk retail outlets, its "k presse und buch” press and book retail chain and Caffè Spettacolo.