Five bosses depart in cull at Morrisons

THE Morrisons director who recruited Ant & Dec to front the grocer’s ad campaign is among five executives chopped as part of a dramatic boardroom cull.

Fledgling Morrisons chief executive David Potts wasted no time wielding the axe laying off half the management board he inherited just one week after taking over as chief executive. Potts is trying to turn around Britain’s fourth largest grocer which has struggled after a string of profit warnings and disappointing sales.

new chairman Andy Higginson sacked Potts’ predecessor Dalton Philips in January and now five more of the grocer’s top team have followed him out of the door.

Marketing guru nick Collard, who signed Ant & Dec, is leaving just days after Morrisons confirmed the I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here presenters had also been ditched.

Other departures include group retail director Martyn Fletcher, property and strategy director Gordon Mowat, logistics boss neal Austin and convenience managing director nigel Robertson.

Potts gave them a lukewarm sendoff, saying: ‘I will now be constructing a leaner management board, with the aim of simplifying and speeding up the business.’ The speed with which Potts acted sur- prised some within the retail industry. The last time so many senior members at the top of a grocer were dispatched was when former Tesco chief executive Phil Clarke removed much of the supermarket giant’s management.

Sources close to Morrisons say Potts wanted to act fast to bring in ‘fresh blood’.

There have already been concerns Higginson is creating a mini-Tesco. Both he and Potts came from the bigger FTSE 100 rival along with finance director Trevor Strain.

Higginson has previously denied this saying Morrisons (up 0.7p at 206.7p) was most potent when it set itself apart from its competitors.