Tiger Brands is looking for a slew of new recruits and is trying to entice potential candidates to begin their career with the beleaguered monolith, positioning their sell as: "Tiger Brands is respected for its innovation and high performance culture."
That's the same "high performance" (read relentless pursuit of profits above all else) that saw Tiger fined R98,7m by the competition commission following the bread price fixing scandal that broke late last year. And which saw the company's pharmaceuticals division, Adcock Ingram, get slapped with a R53,5-million fine for price fixing this year.
Along with innovation, flexibility is characteristic sought out by these employers. Small wonder if you consider the share dump dance Tiger execs did recently. When contacted by the Competition Tribunal about the price fixing cartel, Tiger's directors were fleet footed and flexible about dumping their shares. Mail&Guardian's Lloyd Gedye reports that R44m worth of options were exercised by directors, with the sell of beginning on the very day Premier Foods approached the Competition Commission for leniency in exchange for
their cooperation with the collusion investigation.
The timing was perfect as the executives were able to avoide huge losses when news of the investigation broke and drove the Tiger share price down. Before the price fixing scandal became common knowlege the shareprice was some R175. They are currently trading at R136. No such luck for Tiger shareholders outside of the executive. They were only notified of the Competition Commission investigation in a SENS report only a full month after the case was referred to the tribunal.
Lastly I think it is reaching to say that Tiger is "respected" for their "high performance culture". According to Financial Mail the Edward Nathan
Sonnenberg report on the price-fixing in the bread industry commissioned by Tiger itself in February
last year (and which was kept well away from from public view until end June) the current culture at Tiger is hardly one of mutual respect. Says FM: "The Edward Nathan report hints at a culture crippled by resentment and lies, with a green CEO in Peter Matlare."
@Dolce: I reckon that depends on context. But let's face it, given their current history the Tiger context is troubled. "High performance culture." That just reads so bad.
Posted by: Mandy de Waal | 12 July 2008 at 17:56
doesn't "high performance culture" mean just that...we want you to stab, hack and theive your way better than the pack?
Posted by: Dolce | 09 July 2008 at 11:45