Coles quits as Caribou CEO

BROOKLYN PARK, Minn., Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Michael Coles has resigned after a nearly five-year stint as chief executive officer of the U.S. firm Caribou Coffee Co.

Coles' tenure, which ended Monday, will be remembered as a period when the number of gourmet java outlets more than doubled, from 207 to 473, and the value of the company's stock dropped by about two-thirds, from $15.50 to $5.15, since it began trading in 2005, the Star Tribune reported Tuesday.

Rosalyn Mallet, president and chief operating officer, was named interim chief executive and board member Gary Graves became non-executive chairman of the board of Caribou, which has its headquarters in Brooklyn Park, Minn., the Minneapolis newspaper said. Coles, 60, is staying on as a board member.

Coles, who previously made a fortune by building and then selling the Great American Cookie Co., said in a statement it was "time to step aside and let a new CEO take the company through its next phase of growth."

Caribou was founded in 1992 by John and Kim Puckett, who sold it in 2001 to Crescent Capital Investments, an Atlanta private equity firm. Caribou, the second-largest specialty coffee company in the United States after Starbucks, has 5,000-plus employees in 18 states and Washington.