Senior staff are preparing to stage an exodus at Asda after receiving final payouts from a share scheme run by the grocer’s American owner.
Industry sources and headhunters said that they had been contacted by several Asda executives looking to leave, with one saying that the level of inquiries was much higher than normal for the sector.
Walmart, the giant £290 billion retail group, completed its £6.8 billion sale of Asda to the Issa brothers and TDR Capital, the private equity firm, in February. Asda employees were eligible to take part in Walmart’s sharesave scheme, with stock held over the past three years vesting this month.
An industry source said that some Asda executives had decided to leave because they would no longer be able to take part in Walmart’s scheme. They also pointed to three turbulent years at Asda that included a failed tie-up with Sainsbury’s, the pandemic and the company’s sale.
It is understood that Asda has restructured its staff bonus opportunities to mitigate the loss of the Walmart share scheme. Staff can receive between 100 per cent and 200 per cent of their salary in cash bonuses, depending on their seniority.
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An Asda insider defended the supermarket’s position and pointed out that it had recently recruited Sam Dickson from Waitrose as a new vice-president, while Carl Dawson had left his chief information officer role at Marks & Spencer to take the same post at Asda.
This month Roger Burnley, chief executive of Asda, said that he had made the “personal” decision to leave amid rumours that the new owners had been looking for his replacement since Christmas. Burnley, 54, said he couldn’t see himself committing to another five years, “which is quite a long time”.
He insisted that his relationship with the supermarket’s new owners was “magnanimous” and that he would be staying for a year and would help with succession planning. Trevor Strain, Morrisons’ chief operating officer, Steve Murrells, the boss of Co-op, Jason Tarry, of Tesco, Stuart Machin, at M&S, Ronny Gottschlich, a former boss of Lidl, and Anthony Hemmerdinger, Asda’s chief operating officer, have been named by industry sources as potential candidates.
Headhunters say it is crucial that the Issas pick someone with experience in UK grocery retail, although that has to be balanced with the flexibility to work with entrepreneurs, meaning that a corporate lifer may not be a good fit.
