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Burger King and Tim Hortons products are pictured in North Vancouver, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2014. Tim Hortons Inc. shareholders voted in favour of the takeover by Burger King Worldwide Inc. on Tuesday. The vote follows the approval by Ottawa last week of the deal following a review under the Investment Canada Act. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardThe Canadian Press

The new owners of Tim Hortons appointed a veteran executive of Burger King's expansion in Asia to lead the doughnut chain as it seeks to take its Canadian crullers, Timbits and double-doubles to the world.

But does the world want Tim Hortons?

The $12.5-billion takeover of Tim Hortons by Burger King creates a fast-food giant with $23-billion (U.S.) in annual sales now called Restaurant Brands International Inc. Shares started trading in Toronto and New York on Monday, closing at $41.14 (Canadian) in Toronto, up 39 cents, as the company announced its new executive team.

As previously announced, former Burger King chief executive officer Daniel Schwartz is the merged company's new CEO. Former Burger King Asia Pacific president Elias Diaz Sese, a dozen-year veteran of the burger chain's operations who has also led its expansion in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, will head up the Tim Hortons brand as its president.

The Spanish-educated Mr. Diaz Sese, who has law and business degrees and previously worked for French sporting goods retailer Decathlon, is moving from Singapore to Oakville, Ont., to take the Tim Hortons job, the company said.

Mr. Diaz Sese's experience heading up Burger King's expansion overseas is an obvious fit with Burger King's goal of global expansion for Tim Hortons. The company says he tripled Burger King's annual rate of restaurant growth in Asia.

Just last month, Mr. Diaz Sese oversaw the launch of Burger King in the massive emerging fast-food market of India, where beef and pork are both off the menu for religious reasons and the chain's trademark Whopper burgers are made from lamb. The burger chain is now in 100 countries.

But whether the rest of the world will warm to Canada's national drive-through the same way Canadians do, without all of the associations with childhood hockey practices and the like, remains an open question. The company's expansion in the United States, where it now has 800 stores, has so far met with mixed reviews.

And back home, Tim Hortons's new owner's reputation for slashing costs has some concerned. The new company is majority-owned by Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital Management LLC. When 3G installed Mr. Schwartz as CEO of Burger King in 2010, the newly minted executive – just 30 years old at the time – dramatically slashed the chain's head office staff, gave up the corporate jet and cancelled a lavish party held by Burger King's European wing.

But Mr. Schwartz, now 34, and his company, in order to gain the approval of their takeover of Tim Hortons from Investment Canada, have committed to working with Tim Hortons franchisees to maintain jobs in Canada and to keeping a "significant" level of employment at the new merged company's Oakville headquarters.

Mr. Schwartz said in an interview Monday that any talk of cuts or changes was premature.

"Tim Hortons in Canada is going to remain Tim Hortons in Canada," Mr. Schwartz said. "Any time you have a merger of two big companies, there's going to be some efficiencies both [in the U.S.] and in Canada. But to be honest it is still too early to say."

Mr. Schwarz defended his cost-slashing at Burger King, saying that while the company did cut back at headquarters, it reinvested in its restaurants, building an online training system for its restaurants and moving to collect more data from its operations.

"We're firm believers in an ownership mentality – treat every dollar like it's our own. And at Burger King, while we cut back on the expenses at the headquarters, we reinvested in the field," Mr. Schwartz said. "… Basically we got leaner at the corporate side, and we got much heavier on the restaurant side. And that's consistent with our overall approach."

Mr. Schwartz defended Tim Hortons's record in the U.S. and said expansion and success there is a top priority. He also stressed that Mr. Diaz Sese would be assisted by a team of Tim Hortons veterans, including newly appointed Tim Hortons Canada president and chief operating officer David Clanachan and Mike Meilleur, who becomes president of the Tim Hortons brand in the United States, where he has led the chain's expansion efforts since 2012. Outgoing Tim Hortons CEO Marc Caira remains as vice-chairman of the new parent company's merged board.

The new merged company's board, which is to include eight appointees from Burger King and three from Tim Hortons, will be chaired by Alex Behring, the Brazilian co-founder of 3G.

Combined, Tim Hortons and Burger King have 18,000 restaurants and $23-billion (U.S.) in sales, making the new company, Restaurant Brands International, one of the world's largest fast-food operators. Also Monday, the new company named Miami-born Jose Cil, head of Burger King's Europe, Middle East and Africa operations, as the brand's new global president.

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