The Super Retail Group Ltd (ASX: SUL) share price has dropped lower in morning trade following the release of an announcement.
At the time of writing the retail group's shares are down 1% to $6.84.
What was announced?
This morning Super Retail announced that Anthony Heraghty will succeed current managing director and chief executive officer, Peter Birtles, when he steps down from the role at the end of March.
According to the release, Mr Heraghty is currently the managing director of the company's Outdoor Retailing business and the board felt he was the standout candidate following an executive search that commenced in October.
The board also believes that the "appointment ensures a smooth leadership transition for Super Retail Group, positioning the business to continue its growth and value creation."
Super Retail's chair, Sally Pitkin, explained the rationale for the appointment.
She said: "In selecting our new CEO, the Board's priorities were to find a candidate to entrench a customer-first mentality and shape strategy to lead our evolution to a world-class omni-retailer. We wanted an experienced retail executive to lead our passionate team and develop talent, continue the process of refining Super Retail Group's capability to meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive and technology-driven retail environment and build momentum across the business as we strive to continue long-term value creation for shareholders."
Was a trading update provided?
Unfortunately, Super Retail didn't use this as an opportunity to provide an update on its performance during the all-important Christmas period.
Which is especially disappointing given the underperformance of its share price since Christmas Eve due to concerns that it may have struggled during the period following the surprisingly weak Kathmandu Holdings Ltd (ASX: KMD) trading update.
Prior to today, since Christmas Eve the Super Retail share price was down 1% compared to a 7.2% gain by the S&P/ASX 200 (Index: ^AXJO) (ASX: XJO).
Though, perhaps investors could interpret the lack of an update as a case of no news is good news.
Should you invest?
Although the lack of an update is disappointing, at under 10x earnings I think investors have already priced in a disappointing performance in FY 2019. So if Super Retail does deliver a solid result this year, there's every chance that its shares could re-rate meaningfully higher over the next 12 months.
In light of this, today's appointment, and its trailing fully franked 7.1% dividend, I think it is well worth considering an investment in the retailer along with industry peers Accent Group Ltd (ASX: AX1) and Bapcor Ltd (ASX: BAP).
