Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc named David Potts as chief executive officer, tasking the former head of Tesco Plc’s Asia unit with reviving the ailing British grocer.
Potts, 57, will start in the role on March 16, Bradford, England-based Morrison said in a statement. He will earn a salary of 850,000 pounds a year.
Potts faces a stiff task in turning around Morrison, the smallest of the U.K.’s four main grocers. Under his predecessor Dalton Philips, Morrison experienced about two years of declining quarterly same-store sales. A 1 billion-pound price investment plan and a program to match prices of discounters Aldi and Lidl has yet to be reflected in improved sales.
Morrison has been without a CEO since Philips was ousted in January. His departure after five years in the role coincided with another former Tesco executive, Andrew Higginson, bringing forward his intended start date as Morrison chairman. Potts and Higginson worked together at Tesco for more than a decade, with Higginson spending more than 10 years as finance director at the Cheshunt, England-based retailer.
“David is the best retailer I have worked with in 25 years in the industry,” Higginson said in the statement. “I know he will bring to Morrisons a focus on the customer, a track record of delivery, flair, talent, and immense energy to his new role.”
Potts was on the board of Tesco, the U.K.’s biggest grocer, from 1998 to 2012. He started as an assistant at age 16 in 1973 and joined the board in November 1998 on the same day as Tesco’s former CEO Philip Clarke.
Bloomberg News, edited by ESM
