IN the wake of the latest bout of bloodletting at Harrods, when Mohamed al-Fayed hoofed out the store’s fifth chief executive in four years, I am not surprised to hear that the Egyptian grocer is having problems restocking his boardroom.
Insiders say the chairman has for some time been looking for a replacement for Richard Simonin, the Frenchman whom he fired three weeks ago. Perhaps candidates are being put off by revelations of Fayed’s obsession that none of his senior staff works hard enough, as revealed last week in The Sunday Times? But I hear there is a man who has caught Fayed’s eye: he is none other than Vittorio Radice, the former boss at Selfridges and the man who famously made a heroic failure of Marks & Spencer’s attempt to open a furniture store in the form of the Life Store.
My sources at Harrods (newly dubbed the Prufrock Ladies to ensure fair competition with Fayed’s internal spy network, the Chairman’s Ladies) say Radice has already been interviewed for the top job and recalled twice for further chats.
I can see where Fayed is coming from. As one of nine directors to be axed in a year at M&S, Radice has relevant combat experience.
But in the interests of saving time, Mr Fayed, I’m told that Radice is unlikely to want the post, so it’s back to the jobcentre, I’m afraid.
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Man Utd scores own goal
RED FACES at Manchester United, which has been forced to admit that it cannot count. In 2003 the super-rich football club was found guilty by the Office of Fair Trading of fixing the price of its football shirts and fined £1.6m on the basis of sales figures supplied by the club.
Its appeal last month didn’t quite go to plan: instead of vindicating itself, it had to admit that it had excluded 5,879 kits worth £176,000 from the figures, and so owed more than the original fine. Talk about an own goal.