Justin King has ended his ten-year reign as Sainsbury's chief executive, following his announcement of the decision in January.
He is regarded as having transformed Sainsbury's from a relatively poorly functioning company to the outstanding performer of the big four UK grocers.
Clive Black, head of research at Shore Capital Stockbrokers, said, "I wouldn't say Sainsbury's financial performance was stellar under Justin King, but he prevented it from crashing out of existence, and there was a danger of that because Sainsbury's was a basket case. If you had said in 2007 that Sainsbury's would outperform Asda, Morrisons and Tesco, you would have been in danger of being sectioned, and that is his greatest achievement."
Under King, Sainsbury's returned to being Britain's second-biggest supermarket after Tesco and achieved a remarkable nine years of sales increases, which continued even when the recession was at full strength. He is credited with being one of the retail leaders who grasped the rise of Internet and convenience shopping early on, and as having achieved and maintained a balance between quality and price.
King himself said, "I'd have preferred sales to be growing, but I'm not leaving on a low. Total sales are growing, and we delivered a performance in the context of a market that is growing at the lowest level in ten years. Our outperformance, if anything, was a bit stronger in the last quarter than it has been in a while."
© 2014 European Supermarket Magazine by Peter Donnelly
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