Heineken re-organises regions and senior management: Heineken has reorganised its regions and senior management structure to “accelerate the delivery of its global strategy”. The changes will allow the business to “better focus on growth opportunities, to be more agile in responding to consumer needs in the marketplace and be more cost effective in doing so”. The key changes are: The business will be regrouped around four geographic regions. The existing regions of Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe will be united to form a single Europe region, focused primarily on the European Union markets. Stefan Orlowski, President Americas, will lead this region. The existing Africa Middle East region will be combined with Russia and Belarus to form a new region, Africa Middle East and Eastern Europe. Roland Pirmez, President Asia Pacific, will lead this new region. Marc Busain, Managing Director CM/Heineken Mexico, becomes President of the existing Americas region and Frans Eusman, chief business services officer, becomes President of the existing Asia Pacific region. The head office organisation, both functional and regional will be streamlined. The roles of chief marketing officer and chief sales officer will be combined at a global level in one chief commercial officer role. Jan Derck van Karnebeek, president central and Eastern Europe and global chief sales officer, will assume this position. Strategy development will be embedded in the organisation and the role of chief strategy officer will be phased out. The key functions currently within global business services are now successfully established and so will transfer to the chief financial officer. As a result the new management group will be leaner and renamed executive team. Furthermore, the composition and structure of the management reporting directly to the executive team has been redesigned, subject to consultation with the relevant Works Councils. In the coming three months, further work will be undertaken in order to eliminate duplication, streamline processes and simplify decision-making. Taken together, these changes will underpin delivery of the company’s medium term target of improving consolidated operating margin by around 40 basis points per annum. Jean-François van Boxmeer, chairman of the executive board and chief executive of Heineken, said: “The changes announced today will make us a more agile organisation. Our management structure will be flatter, our operating companies more empowered and our cost of doing business lower. The new executive team consists of proven leaders who will build on the outstanding work done by the Heineken executive committee over the last few years.” The new structure will be operational from 1 July 2015 with Heineken’s first half performance for 2015 reported under the existing regional structure on 3 August. Restated figures for the prior year and 2015 first half performance based on the new regional structure will be provided at a later stage. “Head Office” will remain as a separate reporting entity.

Christie Group reports operating profit doubled in 2014: Property agent and professional services company Christie Group has reported sales up 12.7% to £61m in the 12 months ended 31 December 2014. Operating profit more than doubled to £3.7m (2013: £1.6m). Earnings per share increased to 9.34p per share (2013: 0.82p per share). It reported that the retail stocktaking market has experienced strong pricing pressure, but buoyant corporate transactional activity was driving growth in professional business services. It stated that it was seeing double-digit asset value growth in most of our market sectors. David Rugg, chief executive of Christie Group said: “We have worked hard to benefit from the economic recovery. Our adaptability has been key. We are growing revenue, have increased profitability and strengthened earnings. We continue our European expansion.”