Tesco Taps Tate & Lyle, Burberry Chairman Gerry Murphy -- Update
03 Julho 2023 - 5:40AM
Dow Jones News
By Anthony O. Goriainoff
Tesco said Saturday that Gerry Murphy has been appointed
chairman and will join the board on Sept. 1, replacing John Allan
who stepped down in June following claims that he acted
inappropriately toward several women.
The U.K. number one grocer by market share said that interim
chairman Byron Grote will step down and revert back to his previous
position as senior independent director.
Murphy is currently chairman of Tate & Lyle, a position he
will step down from. He is also chairman of Burberry Group.
The company said Murphy recently served as chief executive
officer at Kingfisher, and was previously CEO at Carlton
Communication, Exel, and Greencore Group.
"The board conducted an extensive search for a new chair and we
are delighted that Gerry is joining the board and taking on the
chair role. He was the unanimous choice of the board and will bring
to our board a record of strong and effective boardroom leadership
and a deep understanding of retail and consumer-focused businesses
and corporate governance," Grote said.
Shares at 0809 GMT were up 3.10 pence, or 1.25%, at 251.50
pence.
On May 19 Tesco said that Allan would step down in June
following the claims and named Grote as interim chair.
Allan, who has served at the company since 2015, has denied
three of four claims about his conduct toward women, Tesco said at
the time. The executive has "unreservedly apologized" for another,
which dealt with a comment he made about a woman's dress.
Allan is one of the U.K.'s most prominent business figures,
having served previously as president of the Confederation of
British Industry, a lobby group. The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper,
earlier in May published a story citing anonymous sources who
claimed that Allan had inappropriately touched two women, and made
inappropriate remarks about two others, including at a 2019 event
held by the CBI, and at Tesco's 2022 annual meeting.
"It is with regret that I am having to prematurely stand down
from my position as Chair of Tesco PLC following the anonymous and
unsubstantiated allegations made against me, as reported by the
Guardian," Allan said in a statement on May 19. "These allegations
are utterly baseless, as the internal procedures undertaken by
Tesco prove."
Tesco said in May that it had initiated an investigation into
the claims against Allan, which included reviewing footage from its
2022 annual meeting and contacting attendees of the meeting. The
investigation didn't identify any evidence or complaints of
misconduct by Allan at the meeting or throughout his tenure as
Tesco's chair, the company said.
"While we have received no complaints about [Allan]'s conduct
and made no findings of wrongdoing, these allegations risk becoming
a distraction to Tesco," Grote said in a statement in May.
Write to Anthony O. Goriainoff at
anthony.orunagoriainoff@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 03, 2023 04:25 ET (08:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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