The Sunday Times yesterday claimed that Marks & Spencer has placed former Asda chairman Archie Norman at the head of its wish list as a replacement for outgoing chairman Luc Vandevelde.
Vandevelde is said to be leaving because of "personal commitments" to the family of Paul Louis Halley, a shareholder in French supermarket Carrefour, who was killed in a plane crash in December. Vandevelde joined the Carrefour board soon after and has been widely criticised for taking his eye off the job in hand at M&S.
"A search is underway for a new chairman and Luc will remain... for as long as necessary," M&S said. Vandevelde joined M&S in 2000 with the primary objective of reversing sliding sales, but he has failed to achieve lasting improvement in a difficult trading environment. After an apparently successfully first three years at the helm, the bubble burst in the last trading year, with like-for-like food sales dropping by 1.4 per cent.
Norman is credited, along with his then colleague Allan Leighton, as being the brains and inspiration behind the initial surge of Asda through the early and mid-1990s, a rise in prominence and stature that eventually led to the chain being purchased by Wal-Mart.
He is Conservative party chairman, a position that the Sunday Times believes he would be expected to give up should he take on the M&S role.
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