The giant trading company Aldi Süd separates from its CEO Matthew Barnes. According to a media report, the Brit, who has repeatedly come under criticism, must now leave the company. However, Aldi Süd explains that Barnes himself would have decided to resign from his job.

CEO Matthew Barnes has to leave Aldi Süd. The Briton has recently come under increasing criticism. This is reported by the “manager magazin” and refers to internal information. According to insiders, the personnel will be announced later today.

In the meantime, Aldi Süd has stated in a press release that Matthew Barnes has decided to resign from his job for family reasons. He commuted weekly between Salzburg and Great Britain and has now decided to stay with his family in Great Britain.

The company continues: “Matthew’s previous duties will initially be taken over by his colleague Thomas Ziegler, 55, who has been a member of the Executive Board since 2015. We thank Matthew for 26 years of loyal and committed support, as well as his extraordinary commitment to the successful development of ALDI SOUTH. We wish him and his family all the best for the future.”

In 2019, Barnes took over the dual leadership of Aldi Süd together with the German Thomas Ziegler in order to modernize the group, reduce the gap to the competitor Lidl and expand cooperation with the sister company Aldi Nord. The latter has not worked out so far, the two companies could not even agree on a common advertising strategy.