ALICE AVIS, Marks & Spencer’s marketing director, has quit the company after being asked to report to Steve Sharp, part of the new management team headed by Stuart Rose.
Ms Avis, a former global brand director of Diageo’s Johnnie Walker whisky, has been at M&S for 18 months. She is expected to receive a payoff of about £300,000.
M&S has, meanwhile, appointed a headhunter to search for a head of food to replace Maurice Helfgott, the director who moved to head men’s and children’s clothing and home furnishings last week. Retail experts speculated that Steve Esom, head of Waitrose, was a likely target.
Ms Avis is the latest executive to resign after Mr Rose was appointed to replace Roger Holmes in a coup that also claimed the chairmanship of Luc Vandevelde. Vittorio Radice, head of clothing, home and store development, left on Friday.
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The management changes are part of Mr Rose’s plan to defend the company from a proposed takeover by Philip Green, the retail entrepreneur.
The retailer has also taken on DTZ Debenham Tie Leung, the property adviser, to revalue its long leasehold and freehold property assets, which were last valued in 1988 at £2.2 billion.
A review is expected to be completed by the end of this month and some analysts estimate that the property could have doubled in value.
Shares in M&S sank 6¼p to 359¾p on fears that there would be no renewed bid from Mr Green, owner of Bhs and TopShop, whose cash and shares proposal, valued at £7 billion to £9 billion, was rejected by M&S this month.
Shareholders have said that they want at least 400p a share, which would value the company at £10 billion.
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Mr Green is understood to have met a number of leading shareholders in M&S, including Artisan, but has yet to decide whether he will return with a new bid proposal.