Former Tesco FD to head up Boparan Restaurant Group
The former finance director of Tesco has reportedly been appointed as the executive chairman of Boparan Restaurant Group.
Laurie McIlwee will head up the group, which owns Harry Ramsden’s, Giraffe and Ed’s Easy Diner, according to Sky News.
Mr McIlwee was educated at Hagley High and Stourbridge Technology College before reading economics at Coventry University.
He spent 15 years at Tesco until 2014, the last five as CFO, and his current roles include being a non-executive director of Eddie Stobart.
A shadow was cast over the end of his career at the supermarket giant as the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) launched investigations into various practices that went on at the company.
The SFO never named McIlwee as being under investigation and the FRC stopped its own investigation last August after it decided there was “no realistic prospect” of success.
That enabled him to resume his corporate career, and this appointment will see him re-associated with Giraffe, which Tesco sold last June.
Boparan Restaurant Group, which is part of the Ranjit Boparan’s food empire that includes 2 Sisters Food Group, also bought Bernard Matthews last September and 33 Ed’s Easy Diner restaurants from administrators in October.
