Tim Hortons, the biggest seller of coffee and doughnuts in Canada, is cutting staff at its regional offices and corporate headquarters following its takeover by Burger King.
The job reduction is part of a reorganization that comes less than two months after the company’s shareholders approved the approximately $11 billion deal, which created the world’s third-largest fast-food company.
“We have had to make some difficult but necessary decisions today as we reorganize our company to position ourselves for the significant growth and opportunities ahead of us,” Alexandra Cygal, a spokeswoman for Tim Hortons, said in an e-mailed statement.
Burger King’s acquisition of Tim Hortons created a new company called Restaurant Brands International that is based in Oakville, Ontario. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. provided Burger King with $3 billion in financing for the deal. Buffett has since used warrants to take a more than 4 per cent stake in the company.
Restaurant Brands is controlled by billionaire Jorge Paulo Lemann’s 3G Capital, which previously teamed up with Buffett to take Heinz private. As with Tim Hortons, they moved quickly to reduce costs and eliminate corporate jobs after the Heinz deal.
The same was true when 3G acquired Burger King. Within two months of the purchase, the firm cut 413 jobs at the restaurant chain’s North American and Latin American operations, including jobs at headquarters in Miami.
Tim Hortons didn’t specify how many employees would lose their jobs.
Bloomberg News, edited by ESM
