Update: H&R Block Rival Wants Top Job

John Hewitt, who built two major tax services that compete with H&R Block Inc., said he is interested in the top Block job vacated today by Mark Ernst.
Kansas City-based Block announced Ernst’s resignation as chief executive officer, president and chairman this morning. The chairman’s seat was immediately filled by Richard Breeden, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman who was voted onto Blocks board in September.
Hewitt, who was a regional director at Block in 1981, said he has not talked with Block’s board or Breeden.
But Hewitt said in an interview that he shares Breeden’s vision of a slimmed down Block focused on tax services.
The company is seeking a new chief executive and is widely expected to shed its non-tax services, perhaps including the H&R Block Bank and Block’s brokerage business. The company already has a buyer for its Option One mortgage operation, though the deal is in jeopardy because of problems in the sub-prime mortgage industry.
“I agree with Breeden, get rid of everything,” Hewitt said from his office in Virginia Beach, Va..
Hewitt said his move to the top job at Block would require a merger between Block and Liberty Tax Service, of which he is chairman, president and chief executive officer.
Hewitt started Liberty Tax in Canada after selling Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc., which he had built into a rival to H&R Block from only six offices.
Liberty Tax, which is privately owned, expects to have 2,500 offices this tax season, 98 percent of which are franchises rather than owned by the company.