Sir Ken Morrison, the former chairman of UK retailer Morrisons, has criticised former chief executive Marc Bolland who left the business this year to join Marks and Spencer.
Speaking at the retailer’s AGM, Sir Ken, the company’s second-largest shareholder said he was “not too disappointed” about Bolland’s departure.
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According to the Yorkshire Post, Sir Ken claimed that former Heineken executive Bolland was “patently not a retailer”.
Sir Ken, 78, is one of the more outspoken members of the retail sector but his comments came as a surprise.
Bolland was widely credited with breathing fresh life into Morrisons after joining the business in 2006 when it was struggling to digest 2004 acquisition Safeway.
Under Bolland, between the first half of 2006 and the first half of 2009, Morrisons enjoyed a near-quadrupling in profits.
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By GlobalDataM&S’s shares jumped 6% on the day of Bolland’s appointment in November.
Morrisons has gone on to hire former Loblaw and Wal-Mart director Dalton Phillips as chief executive.
Sir Ken labelled Phillips “the new golden boy” and said: “I think very optimistically about the future of the business when I look at him. I think he’s going to be around for quite a long time.”
Phillips, in his first public comments since joining the business, said Morrisons was “a great company”.
“Can we do it better? We have great people and great values, but we still have some stuff to do. That’s what I will be looking at,” Phillips was quoted as saying by the Yorkshire Post.
