Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci announces departure days after walking out of Four Corners interview

As questions go it was hardly a zinger. Asked about competition in the Australian supermarket sector, Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci delivered well-rehearsed lines.

Banducci said competition was “robust” and “that’s what we love about it”. He talked up Aldi as “amazing” and Costco as the world’s top performing retailer.

“It is an incredibly competitive market,” he said.

It was when he was pushed that his view was directly at odds with the experience of former ACCC boss Rod Sims, that he stumbled, then bristled.

He derided Sims as “retired” and someone who no longer understood the grocery market.

It was a curious response.

Perhaps sensing he’d overstepped, Banducci asked for his comments on Sims to be taken out.

When we refused, his response was that of someone not accustomed to being challenged.

“I think I’m done guys,” Banducci said, getting up to leave.

Woolworths’ PR staff took the chief executive aside. A few minutes later he returned to the interview.

For the last few months there’s been talk that Banducci was on the way out, but his performance on Four Corners may have hastened this exit.

The man who was paid $8.5 million last year will leave the supermarket giant in September after eight years in the top job.

Before then he faces a far tougher grilling from the Senate’s inquiry into grocery pricing.

There’s no walking out of that.

Woolworths said Wednesday’s announcement was long planned.

Chair Scott Perkins told investors on Wednesday morning that the company had been actively looking for Banducci’s successor since mid-2023.

Banducci told the investors briefing that while he had considered deferring the announcement “given recent events” he thought it was best to “stick to the plan”.

“I tell you, I haven’t managed to dodge every bullet. I do believe in the circle of life,” he said.

Banducci’s blow-up is all the more curious given official data shows that Sims was on firm ground insisting Australia’s supermarket sector is “stunningly concentrated”.

The annual report from the Independent Reviewer of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct shows that Coles and Woolworth have 65 per cent of the market. Aldi has just 10 per cent, while Costco and Amazon (the two others mentioned by Banducci) are not significant enough to even be named and therefore fall into the “other” category.

The extension of the argument mounted by Sims is that it’s an iron-clad economic fact that with such a concentrated market, Australians are paying more for their groceries.

“There’s no doubt we are paying higher prices than we should,” Sims says.

Banducci would not accept this either, even when confronted with his own annual report.

It clearly shows Woolworths had a very good year to June 30. Its Australian supermarket business increased its earnings by 19 per cent to $2.8 billion.

Given that same annual report shows costs were flat, this tells you that rising grocery prices played a big part in that bumper profit result.

Indeed, Woolworths even breaks this number out. It’s called the pre-tax profit margin and it rose from 5.3 per cent to 6 per cent. That increase was worth an extra $318 million in profits to Woolworths last year alone.

Banducci, however, insisted it was efficiencies, not price gouging that delivered this number.

The good times continue for Woolworths. At the same time it was announced that Banducci would exit, the company delivered its half-year profit result.

It shows pre-tax profits for its Australian supermarket business up 10 per cent compared to the same time last year. And while costs are slightly higher, that all important pre-tax profit margin went up again to 6.1 per cent.

This will provide more ammunition for senators to throw against Banducci.

It’s getting harder for him to argue that Woolworths is not profiting from inflation.

Coles and Woolworth have 65 per cent of the Australian grocery market.(Four Corners: Nick Wiggins)

In a statement to the Australian share market, Woolworths chair Scott Perkins was full of praise for Banducci’s “outstanding leadership”.

“Brad has led a remarkable turnaround and transformation of the group,” he said.

“Woolworths Group has been fortunate to have Brad as its leader and he has indeed helped us to be better together.”

Whatever else he’s achieved at Woolworths, Banducci has become a business school case study. He will be remembered as the highly paid CEO who walked out of a TV interview – the clip has been viewed 1.9 million times on TikTok.

And his departure is well timed. It will take the heat out of whatever the senators throw at him next month and Woolworths can claim a fresh start when new CEO Amanda Bardwell takes over in September.

Watch Four Corners’ investigation into the supermarket sector Super Power on ABC iview.

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