Former Tesco chairman dies

Former Tesco chairman Sir Leslie Porter has died at the age of 84.

According to an obituary in The Independent, Sir Leslie was “a notably successful chairman of Tesco. During his chairmanship, from 1974 to 1985, he and Ian MacLaurin (now Lord MacLaurin), his managing director, initiated the policies which transformed Tesco into the most successful British retailer of the last decades of the 20th century.”

Porter married Shirley Cohen, one of the two daughters of the founder of Tesco, Jack Cohen, in 1949. He resisted joining the family company for a decade, but in 1959 he joined Tesco as a director and head of the newly formed Home'n'Wear department.

“When Porter became chairman in 1973, he appointed two managing directors, Laurie Leigh, a close friend and colleague from the Home'n'Wear business and MacLaurin. Leigh died suddenly of a heart attack, and the accidental partnership this created between Porter and MacLaurin proved a triumphant one,” said the Independent’s obit.

“Porter's qualities were soon tested by their first major gamble. In 1977, they abandoned the Green Shield Stamps which had previously made Tesco's fame and fortune. In "Operation Checkout", they replaced the stamps with a policy of deep and continuing price cuts designed to counter the growing success of discount retailers and reduce Britain's then rampant inflation. The step was met by universal disapproval among city commentators, for Tesco had to increase its market share substantially to compensate for the loss of profits involved. It did, with sales increasing by nearly two-fifths, far more than even the optimists had believed possible.

“The very success of "Checkout" involved two major transformations. The first was to rationalise the sprawling range of merchandise Tesco had been offering, a decision that led to the decision, accepted by Porter, to shut the Home'n'Wear departments which had been the reason for his joining Tesco in the first place.

“But the most costly step was to abandon the founder's policy of concentrating on small stores, their location determined by the cheapness of the premises, for Porter inherited a policy of short-termism.”

Porter and MacLaurin adopted a policy of opening much larger stores in better positions. During the 10 years that Porter and MacLaurin were in charge, Tesco's share of the food market climbed to within a mere 0.3 per cent of that enjoyed by Sainsbury's, then far and away the market leader. Leslie Porter was knighted in 1983.

Sir Leslie spent most of his later life in exile, as wife Dame Shirley Porter was embroiled in a series of political and financial scandals. Last year, she agreed to make a payment of £12m after private detectives investigating Redbus International, a firm with which son John Porter had become involved, had found evidence that the wealth she had inherited from her father, which included five million shares in Tesco, had been squirrelled away in off-shore tax havens.