City Refrigeration Overseas

City Refrigeration in Australia

The softly softly approach was the one Sir William Haughey adopted in Australia where, after 14 months of in-depth due diligence, City Refrigeration concluded a deal to take over the facilities management of 720 Coles stores, the country’s second-largest food retailer.

Coles was acquired in 2007 by Wesfarmers, which started out as a farmer’s co-operative and grew to become one of Australia’s largest-listed companies and employers.

To help transform the under-performing Coles supermarket group, Wesfarmers drafted in a strong contingent of new talent.

Their ‘turnaround’ team is led by the man regarded as the ‘saviour’ of Asda in the UK, Archie Norman, and the Managing Director of Coles is Scot Ian MacLeod, a former chief executive of Halfords, who also worked for Asda, and Tony Buffin, one of the UK’s top financial directors.