Taste Holdings leaving a sour taste?
Governance concern comes to light amid the food franchiser’s lacklustre performance
As investors (and journalists) took their working caps off and hit the beach, aspiring fast-food company Taste Holdings sneaked out a Sens announcement five days before Christmas that contained a glaring conflict of interest. It was a poor end to a horrid year for Taste, in which its share price plunged 33%, wiping R370m off its market value. Its big bets on its expensive foreign franchises — coffee mega-brand Starbucks and US pizza giant Domino’s — have yet to translate into big profits. So, in December Taste said it had decided to buy 15 Domino’s pizza franchise stores across northern and central SA from its CEO, Carlo Gonzaga, who held this interest through his company, Aloysius Trading, for R6m. The rationale for the move was a “perceived conflict of interest”, given that Taste would effectively have been competing with Gonzaga’s Aloysius. Previously, Taste only owned franchises; now it’s owning the actual stores. Selling the stake to Taste, it said, “served to remove the percei...
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