Britain's top clothing retailer Marks & Spencer today appointed Terry Burns as chairman to replace Paul Myners with effect from July next year, following weeks of bitter boardroom squabbles.
Senior non-executive director Kevin Lomax has openly been looking for a replacement for Myners for several months, and appears to have emerged victorous despite the support of major shareholders for the team of Myners and Chief Executive Stuart Rose in their bid to turn around the battered retailer.
The arguments between the two men have reportedly split the M&S board down the middle. Some media commentators had called on Lomax to quit M&S and concentrate on Misys, the software company he founded in 1979.
Burns, currently chairman of Abbey National and Welsh Water, will join the M&S board as deputy chairman with effect from October 1, and will become chairman at the 2006 AGM. Myners will leave the board at the same time.
Last month, M&S posted its sixth straight quarter of falling sales, blaming tough market conditions, and Rose acknowledged the trading performance was still poor almost a year into his recovery plan.
The group now expects profit before tax and exceptional items for the year to March to be in the £615m-625m sterling range, and any shortfall would certainly be punished heavily by the stock market. The M&S share has underperformed the benchmark FTSE-100 index by over 6% since January 1.
