M&S appoints interim financial officer
Marks & Spencer has appointed former Tesco executive David Surdeau as its interim finance chief while it looks for a permanent replacement for Humphrey Singer.
Singer stepped down as the high street giant’s chief financial officer at the end of December following more than a year in the role.
M&ssaidthatsurdeau–who was most recently group planning, treasury and tax director at supermarket major Tesco – would start his new role on 7 January. The clothing, homwewares and food retailer has undergone a recent boardroom shake-up which saw it poach Tesco’s F&F clothing boss Richard Price to head its under-pressure clothing and home division.
M&S, which is due to report on its festive trading next week, was demoted from the FTSE 100 last year following a challenging period for the retail sector.
Analysts at brokerage Shore Capital noted: “M&S continues to seek a new group CFO, a position that it would appear is proving a little more time-consuming than may have been first expected as the right person is identified and recruited following the step down of Humphrey Singer.
“M&S is expected to report Q3 trading next week, when we would expect the food operations to be delivering low single-digit like-for-like sales growth whilst the greater market focus is perhaps going to be to see if clothing and home could sustain positive October 2019 trade; despite excitement, we sense from secondary trade data that UK industry activity tailed off as the year came to an end.”