Movie Gallery CEO steps down
Gabriel departs after less than a year, Mityas takes over
By Danny King -- Video Business, 3/5/2009
MARCH 5 | Movie Gallery CEO C.J. ‘Gabe’ Gabriel has stepped down 10 months after being tapped to replace co-founder Joe Malugen as the No. 2 movie-rental chain emerged from bankruptcy last year.
Gabriel, who also had been named to Movie Gallery’s board last August, left the company “on good terms” and will be replaced by Sherif Mityas, who joined the company as its chief operating officer in June, said Cliff Torng, Movie Gallery’s chief marketing officer. Torng declined to give further details on why Gabriel left or what he would do next.
A former executive with grocer Albertsons Inc., Gabriel took over Movie Gallery shortly after it emerged from bankruptcy. Weighed down by debt from its $1.2 billion acquisition of Hollywood Video in 2005, Movie Gallery filed Chapter 11 in October 2007 and emerged last May.
Since then, the company has tried to cut costs and improve its financial performance by boosting exposure of the Hollywood Video brand while overhauling much of its leadership.
Mityas joined the company last June, and Lucinda “Cindy” Baier replaced Thomas Johnson Jr. as Movie Gallery’s chief financial officer in July. The following month, Malugen, who co-founded Movie Gallery in 1985, resigned from the company’s board of directors.
In late January, Movie Gallery said it was moving its Oregon distribution operations to its Tennessee facility, resulting in the loss of about 200 jobs. That month, Movie Gallery also reported a net loss of $38.9 million on $555.7 million in sales for the three-month period ended April 6, the last period under which the company was still operating in Chapter 11. The results had been delayed due mainly to matters related to the chain’s bankruptcy.
