Sainsbury’s prepares for change at the top
Supermarket retailer moves to secure succession
February 10 2004
Sainsbury’s is preparing for its new regime, which will see chief executive Sir Peter Davis move into the chairman’s role, to be replaced by former Marks & Spencer food boss Justin King.
Sir Peter will become chairman on March 29, at which time former Bass chairman Sir Ian Prosser will join Sainsbury’s as non-executive deputy chairman. King joins the Sainsbury’s board as group chief executive at the same time.
Sir Ian will become the senior independent director and will chair the group’s nomination committee. He is due to succeed Sir Peter as chairman in July 2005.
Current chairman Sir George Bull, whose retirement makes way for Sir Peter, said: “As we near the completion of our business transformation programme, in which we have radically modernised our business, we are moving into trading more aggressively by investing further in quality and making Sainsbury’s offer a more competitive customer proposition.
“The success of this strategy depends on the talent, vision and skill of our management team and we are very pleased to have attracted both Ian Prosser and Justin King to the board.
“Ian has extensive corporate experience having served on five FTSE 100 boards including executive board posts as chief financial officer, chief executive officer and chairman of Bass, and more recently as chairman of Intercontinental Hotels Group.”
Prosser presided over the sale of Bass’s brewing interests to Interbrew, and the subsequent split of the renamed Six Continents group into pub operator Mitchells & Butlers and hotel business InterContinental
