JITNEY JUNGLE APPOINTS JULIAN CEO

ELLIOT ZWIEBACH

JACKSON, Miss. -- Jitney Jungle Stores of America here has named Michael E. Julian chief executive officer, effective Feb. 24.

To accept the new job, Julian, resigned from his position as president and CEO of Farm Fresh, Norfolk, Va., although he will remain a Farm Fresh director.

Succeeding Julian at Farm Fresh will be Ronald E. Johnson, the chain's former executive vice president and chief operating officer, who left Farm Fresh in 1994 to become president and CEO of Kash n' Karry Food Stores, Tampa, Fla., but remained a member of Farm Fresh's board.

Johnson's position at Kash n' Karry was eliminated in December when the company was acquired by Food Lion, Salisbury, N.C.

Julian will take over the CEO title at Jitney Jungle from W.H. Holman Jr., who will continue as chairman of the board. He will add the title of president May 1 when Roger Friou, Jitney's 62-year-old president, retires at the end of the company's fiscal year.

Friou said he will remain with Jitney Jungle as a consultant.

Jitney Jungle, with 1996 sales of $1.2 billion, operates 105 stores in six states. Farm Fresh, with sales of approximately $750 million, operates 50 stores in Virginia and North Carolina. Julian's resignation from Farm Fresh comes at a critical time in the company's history, observers said, noting that in early December the chain hired Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, New York, as a financial adviser to assist it "in exploring strategic alternatives for preserving and creating value for its businesses."

Observers said they expect those alternatives to include either an asset sale, a balance-sheet restructuring or some combination of both.

In an interview last week with SN, Julian said, "With DLJ's guidance, there will be some specific actions taken to deal with the capital structure here. I can't elaborate because we don't know yet what form those actions will take.

"DLJ will continue to provide information for the board to help it make a decision when the time is right. But the evaluation is an ongoing process, and there's no time frame or pending point of time in 1997 by which something must be done."

Asked about the difficulty of deciding whether or not to leave Farm Fresh, Julian said he probably would not have opted to take the Jitney Jungle job "if we didn't have Ron Johnson at stage left. Knowing that he's stepping in and continuing the [financial evaluation] process to its conclusion made it easier for me to accept the opportunity to run a larger company. "Citicorp Venture Capital, Farm Fresh's majority shareholder, would have preferred that I stay on here. But it's not a negative parting of the ways because I will remain a Farm Fresh director with fiduciary responsibilities. "There's no question, however, that on a personal level, I have mixed emotions about leaving Farm Fresh at this time. I'm excited about the new opportunities ahead, and I also believe that some people will think I'm abandoning Farm Fresh at a critical time. But because Ron Johnson will be here, I don't think I am." Julian has been a director of Jitney Jungle since last March. He said the company has already identified Memphis and Little Rock as areas with expansion opportunities, "and we will pursue those opportunities. And there are aspects of operating under a leveraged financial structure, as Jitney is doing, that are new to that management team but which I have nine-and-a-half years worth of experience with at Farm Fresh, so I will bring that expertise with me."