ID NEWS: USF CEO Jim Miller resigns

James (Jim) Miller, ceo, U.S. Foodservice (USF), Columbia, MD, and an executive board member of USF parent, Royal Ahold, Zaandam, The Netherlands, has resigned. Robert G. Tobin, president and ceo of Ahold USA, a member of the Ahold Supervisory Board since 2001, and the former chairman and ceo of Stop & Shop, will serve as interim ceo. Miller has agreed to assist Tobin in the transition.

One of the more controversial figures in the industry, Miller may have been its greatest deal-maker. He put together the nation's second largest broadliner through a series of mega-mergers during the last decade. His resignation comes as a defeat to all the entrepreneurial energy he put into growth. It is the culmination of a steadily growing morass of problems, which started with Ahold's announcement in February that it had discovered accounting irregularities at the $17.5-billion distributorship. These irregularities resulted in an overstatement of promo income of fully $880 billion.

While Miller himself was cleared of any wrongdoing, the debacle and consequent problems for Ahold were too great for him to overcome.

See ID's upcoming Management Report, 5/15/03, for a look back at Miller's career and the meteoric rise of USF, its origins, and the other major players in its history.

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