The boss of Asda is heading for the exit shortly after new owners took over running the grocer, leaving Britain’s third largest supermarket without a chief executive.
After months of speculation about his tenure, Asda said in March that Roger Burnley had resigned but insisted that he would be staying with the company for a year until his long-term successor was in place.
His abrupt departure now has meant that Asda is being run by Mohsin and Zuber Issa, the billionaire brothers who bought it in a £6.8 billion deal with TDR Capital, a private equity firm, last year.
The Competition and Markets Authority cleared the takeover only in June after scrutinising monopoly concerns in the petrol forecourts market. Since gaining the regulator’s approval, the Issa brothers have been able to dictate how the supermarket is run and to explore opportunities to generate synergies with their EG Group petrol stations business.
Sources highlighted that they had bought Asda in the belief that they could run the business more efficiently and generate higher returns.
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The new owners said that they had “mutually agreed” with Burnley that he should step down after the completion of a “transition period” under the new ownership. The process to appoint his successor is continuing.
One source said that Burnley, a former J Sainsbury executive, was leaving Asda with immediate effect “after a total breakdown of the relationship” with the new owners.
It is understood that Jason Tarry, the UK and Ireland boss of Tesco, has turned down the position.
In April Rob McWilliam resigned as chief financial officer. The company said that he had rejoined Asda on a fixed-term contract, which was not being renewed.
The announced exits of the two senior executives came at about the same time The Times reported that senior staff had been contacting recruitment companies after receiving their final share payouts from Walmart, the giant American retailer that had owned Asda for more than two decades.
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Burnley did not reply to requests for comment.
