Yum! Brands Chief Executive Named to Lead Kmart
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Kmart Holding Corp. named Yum! Brands Inc. executive Aylwin Lewis as president and chief executive officer, replacing Julian Day, to reverse declining sales growth.
Mr. Lewis, who spent 13 years at Yum, was most recently president and chief operating officer, Kmart said in a press release. Yum, operator of the Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and KFC restaurant chains, appointed Chief Financial Officer David Deno its COO to replace Lewis, the company said in a statement.
Kmart’s chairman, Edward Lampert, whose firm ESL Investment Inc. owns more than half the company’s stock, is trying to boost same-store sales, which have fallen 12 straight quarters. Mr. Lewis, who at Yum helped oversee Long John Silver’s and Pizza Hut restaurants, will focus on marketing at the no. 3 discount retailer, analyst Richard Hastings said.
“Lewis is going to improve the image and branding,” said Mr. Hastings, a retail analyst at Bernard Sands LLC in New York. “Some stores have a very good appearance, and there are others where they need fixing up.”
Shares of Kmart, which have climbed more than six-fold since May 2003, rose $4.31, or almost 5%, to $91.02 in Nasdaq trading.
Mr. Day, a former Sears, Roebuck and Co. executive who became Kmart president and chief executive in January 2003, will remain on the board.
“Julian was very wealthy and semi retired before he took over,” said Ulysses Yannas, an analyst at Buckman, Buckman & Reid in Shrewsbury, N.J., who doesn’t own Kmart shares. “Now he became more wealthy because of his options. Maybe he said enough is enough.”
Rick Carucci, Yum’s senior vice president of finance, was promoted to chief financial officer-designate.
Mr. Lewis, a 26-year restaurant industry veteran, began his career at Yum as a restaurant general manager, rising through the ranks to his most recent position, Troy-Mich.-based Kmart said. Mr. Lewis, 50, was responsible for the company’s information systems and also ran operations for 2,600 multibranded restaurants, 1,250 Long John Silver’s, and 900 A &W All-American Food restaurants.
In his first year as COO in 2003, Yum’s profit rose 5.8% to $617 million and sales climbed 8% to $8.38 billion.
Mr. Lewis “brings a strong record of successful operating performance,” Mr. Lampert said in the statement. “He is the ideal leader and agent of change for Kmart at this time.”
Mr. Lewis gets his employees “really motivated to work together as a team to create a strong identifiable culture,” said the editor of Restaurants and Institutions magazine, Pat Dailey. “The word on the street has always been strong on Aylwin. People who work and report to him have spoken highly of him.”
Kmart, which exited bankruptcy in May 2003, reported income of $155 million in the fiscal second quarter after holding fewer clearance sales and closing stores. It was Kmart’s third straight profit following 11 consecutive quarters of losses. Sales declined 15% to $4.79 billion.
Sears, the largest American department-store chain, agreed last month to pay $575.9 million to acquire ownership or leasehold interest in 50 Kmart stores. Home Depot Inc., the world’s largest home-improvement chain, in August agreed to buy 18 Kmart locations for $271 million in cash.
Kmart, which operates about 1,500 stores, trails nos. 1 and 2 discounters Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp.