What is in this article?:
- Fairway Sees Big Potential in Expansion
- Directors, Senior Executives
“We believe that our distinctive merchandising strategy has enabled us to build a trusted connection with our customers, who value the quality and fair prices of our food, our merchandising teams’ expertise and our one-stop-shopping convenience.”
— Fairway
Directors, Senior Executives
The filing also disclosed Fairway’s board of directors and a senior executive team, installed this spring under Herbert Ruetsch, the chief executive who succeeded Howard Glickberg in February.
Ruetsch joined Fairway in 1998 after 16 years at Grand Union, and formerly served as Fairway’s president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer. His team consists of William Sanford, president and chief financial officer; Kevin McDonnell, chief operating officer; Nathalie Augustin, general counsel; Aaron Fleishaker, senior vice president, real estate and development; Brian Riesenburger, chief merchandising officer; Larry Santoro, chief administrative officer; and Peter Romano, vice president of produce. These eight serve on a board of directors chaired by Sterling co-founder Charles Santoro and also including Howard Glickberg, identified as a director and vice chairman of development; and Daniel Glickberg, Howard’s son and a Fairway vice president. Three other Sterling appointees are also on the board.
McDonnell was named COO in March and previously served as Fairway’s chief merchandising officer. He is a 27-year veteran of A&P, serving most recently as a senior vice president of sales and marketing. Sanford, named president in March and chief financial officer in April, has served Fairway since 2008 and is an operating partner at Sterling.
The company said it would use proceeds from the IPO — reportedly $150 million although the filing last week did not include precise figures — to fund an unspecified dividend for its owners and to support Fairway’s growth plans. It would list “Class A” stock on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol FWM. The company, which filed as Fairway Group Holdings Corp., would remain a “controlled company” with less stringent requirements concerning the independence of the board of directors and its committees under the corporate governance rules of NASDAQ. Also, as an “emerging growth company” under the JOBS Act, Fairway is permitted rely on exemptions from certain accounting and executive compensation disclosure and stockholder advisory vote requirements that are applicable to other public companies.
In other details:
• The company detailed an agreement with Boone, Iowa-based supermarket operator Fareway Stores, prohibiting the New York entity from using the “Fairway” name on stores except on the East Coast, California and in certain parts of Michigan and Ohio. A separate settlement prohibits Fairway from opening any new stores under that name in the New Jersey counties of Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Passaic, following a dispute with a different retailer in Fort Lee, N.J., also using the Fairway name. “We believe this agreement will preclude us from opening one store that we otherwise might have opened in this territory,” the company said.
Read more: New York's Fairway Mulls IPO
• A Department of Homeland Security audit last year revealed that Fairway’s Pelham Manor store in the Bronx employed as many as 55 workers who did not have valid employment authorization documents. As a result of that investigation, Fairway fired 35 workers this spring and may still face fines or other penalties as a result of the audit.
• The company’s flagship store on Broadway in New York’s Upper West Side may face disruption as a result of potential renovations or rebuilding of the property. The landlord for a building above half of the store may terminate Fairway’s lease to make these renovations in 2017.
• The company is in a dispute with the landlord of its Red Hook store in Brooklyn over utility expenses.
| Suggested Categories | More from Supermarketnews |
 | |
| | |
 | |
