Morrisons appoints non-exec trio

Sir Ken Morrison, executive chairman of troubled supermarket chain Wm
Morrison has been forced to appoint three non-executive directors after a
showdown meeting with the company’s deputy chairman and only other non-exec
David Jones.

The three appointments are Brian Flanagan, Susan Murray and Nigel Robertson
who will join the Morrisons board on 1 July.

Morrisons, which has made five profit warnings since buying rival supermarket
Safeway for £3bn last year, and has struggled with accounting system problems,
said that Sir Ken and Jones would be interviewing further non-executive
candidates with an announcement expected in four weeks time.

Earlier this month Accountancy Age revealed that Morrisons is
believed to be chasing the services of Lloyds TSB finance director Helen Weir as
one of its new non-executive directors.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Sir Ken was blocking the
appointments, claiming that the candidates were ‘not sufficiently heavyweight’.
However, he was said to have been eventually persuaded by Jones and chief
executive Bob Stott, after some of the company’s institutional shareholders
informally offered their support to the deputy chairman.

Flanagan, worked for Mars Corporation for 26 years and was previously global
vice president of business transformation for Mars.

Murray, formerly chief executive of Littlewoods Stores, is currently a
non-executive director of SSL International, Enterprise Inns and Imperial
Tobacco.

Robertson was a senior executive in Marks & Spencer’s food division and
played a central role in establishing Ocado, an online grocery shopping business
in partnership with Waitrose. He currently runs the Early Learning Centre chain.