Paulo Basilio is returning to his former CFO position at Kraft Heinz starting September 1. The regulatory filing outlining the change described Basilio as a “seasoned veteran.”
Basilio served as CFO from July 2013 to October 2017 and was replaced by David Knopf, who came from 3G Capital. Basilio served as CFO at H.J. Heinz before Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital bought Kraft Foods and merged it with Heinz. Following the merger, after Basilio stepped down as CFO of Kraft Heinz, he served as president of U.S. commercial business, and in July became the company’s chief business planning and development officer.
Following a transition, the company said that the 31-year-old Knopf will return to 3G Capital, the Brazilian private equity firm where he is a partner. During his tenure as Kraft Heinz CFO, Knopf wrote down $15.4 billion in value of the company’s Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands. As deal opportunities dried up, sales grew stagnant.
Basilio’s return to the CFO post follows the replacement of Kraft Heinz’s CEO in April, when Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Miguel Patricio replaced Bernardo Hees, who stepped down on June 30.
The company said it has not determined whether to change Basilio’s compensation with his shifting role to Kraft Heinz CFO.
Analysts say that Kraft Heinz has been hurt by competition from private-label brands, changing consumer tastes, and lower investment in its brands due to heavy cost-cutting under leaders that were put in by 3G Capital, the second-largest investor.
The company’s stock has declined more than 57% over the past year, while the S&P 500 index has lost 1% for the period as a result of a series of struggles.
In May, Kraft Heinz said it will have to restate its financial statements for 2016 and 2017 after a review into its procurements and accounting procedures prompted by an SEC subpoena in February that discovered employee misconduct. No senior executives were implicated as part of this internal review.
The review also resulted in the company delaying the filing of its annual report twice. When it reported its financial results for the first half of 2019 earlier in August, the company said it would delay the filing of its 10-Q.