Sir Ken Morrison ... no, that's not a halo.
Photograph: Chris Young/PA
For City investors, the announcement that Sir Ken Morrison, the 74-year-old chairman of the Wm Morrison supermarket chain, will step down in January 2008 could not have come soon enough. Many probably wish he would go sooner.
Morrisons had never made a loss until last year, the direct result of an acquisition that will be picked over by business schools as to how not to handle a merger.
Morrisons bought Safeway in March 2004 in order to go toe-to-toe with the big boys - Tesco, J Sainsbury and Asda. But the small Morrisons team around Sir Ken lacked the expertise to handle such a complicated merger. Morrisons lost control of its finances and issued no less than five profit warnings.
Sir Ken made things worse with the succession issue. Seven months after he announced the search for a new chief executive, that person has yet to be named.
The problem is that as long as Sir Ken - the real power in the firm - hangs around, the more difficult it is to find someone. Sir Ken has now said there will be an announcement at the end of June, but the new chief executive will still have Sir Ken breathing down their neck for over a year.
Still, the worst may be over for Morrisons as it grapples with a dominant Tesco and a resurgent Sainsbury's. The investment bank Credit Suisse is bullish on the company's prospects and believes its shares will outperform the industry average by 10-15% over the next 12 months.
