Burger King's largest operator taps new CFO after $8.3M flub

Dive Brief:

Carrols Restaurant Group, Inc. has named Anthony Hull its new CFO and treasurer, the company announced Monday.
Hull most recently served as senior advisor on corporate strategy and capital markets projects at Realogy Holdings Corp. and previously was the company’s executive vice president, CFO and treasurer.
Carrols Restaurant Group is Burger King’s largest operator, with more than 1,000 locations. Earlier this month, Carrols CEO Daniel Accordino revealed on an earnings call the company erroneously gave out too many discounts on Whoppers over the summer, costing Burger King $8.3 million.

Dive Insight:

In August, Carrols discovered it had made a mistake by given away too many Whoppers at a discount. If not for the error, Carrols’ profits would have jumped 7.4%, "thanks largely to the success of the plant-based Impossible Whopper introduced in late August," says Restaurant Business, a trade publication. But the added discounts didn’t draw in new customers, and Carrols’ stock fell 8%.

The mistake created a ripple effect for the Burger King brand. Carrols operates about 14% of Burger King’s U.S. locations, and Restaurant Business found EBITDA was reduced $7.3 million because of the miscalculation. On its earnings call, the company reported a net loss of $6.8 million.

Since Paul Flanders, Carrols’ previous CFO, passed away in September, Tim LaLonde had been serving as interim CFO. LaLonde will continue serving in the role until Hull steps in on January 2.

"Tony is a fantastic addition to the Carrols executive team and we look forward to benefiting from his well-established credentials and experience," Accordino said.

Hull started his career at Morgan Stanley in the mergers and acquisitions department for the company's media and entertainment group. He worked as corporate vice president of financial planning at Paramount Communications. His first CFO role was at King World Productions for two years, before heading finance, accounting, and IT at DreamWorks.

At Realogy, Hull executed the second largest U.S. IPO of 2012 and achieved more than $100 million on run-rate cost savings, the Carrols statement said.