Allan Leighton confirmed as Co-op chairman
ALLAN Leighton has no qualms about taking the toughest jobs in business. The self-style pluralist has experienced several, including Leeds United (where he organised a rescue takeover) and Asda (which he turned around after near-bankruptcy) to name a couple.
The boardroom veteran added another to his list yesterday after the Co-operative Group confirmed the appointment of Leighton as its new chairman with immediate effect.
His appointment comes after a tumultuous two years in which it discovered a £1.5bn capital hole in its banking arm and became embroiled in a drugs and sex scandal with then-chairman Paul Flowers.
Leighton, 61, is the Co-op’s first independent non-executive chairman since major reforms to its structure last year, succeeding Ursula Lidbetter who has chaired the Co-op since November 2013.
He has also opted to give his entire £250,000 salary to the Co-operative Foundation.
Joining the Co-op undoubtedly brings back memories for Leighton of his childhood when his dad managed a local Co-op in Hereford.
Growing up with the business has given him “a very real understanding of the importance of the Co-operative to local communities and a strong sense of what the Society stands for”, Leighton said yesterday.
Leighton, who began his career at Mars, made his name at supermarket chain Asda, transforming it from a £500m company to one sold to US giant Wal-Mart for £6.2bn in 1999.
He was non-executive chairman of Royal Mail from 2002 to 2009 and president of Canadian food retailer Loblaw from 2008 to 2011.
Leighton is currently chief executive of Danish jewellery retailer Pandora, but will step down on 1 March.
BOSSES WHO HAVE GIVEN UP THEIR SALARIES
■ Lord Wolfson, the chief executive of fashion retailer Next, waived his £4m bonus in favour of sharing it among 20,000 employees who had been with the company for three years. But he still took home a basic salary of £729,000 as well as other bonuses and a reward scheme that took his total pay to £4.6m.
■ The late Steve Jobs was paid a salary of $1 between 1997, when he returned as chief executive, and 2011. However, he was more than adequately compensated with more than 5m shares of Apple stock.
■ Carpetright founder Lord Harris of Peckham sits on the board of Arsenal Football Club’s parent company Arsenal Holdings as a non-executive director – for free. The keen philanthropist is the only director on the board to be paid nothing, opting for his directors’ fees of £25,000 to be donated to charity instead.
■ Sports Direct majority shareholder deputy chairman Mike Ashley has not been paid a salary or bonus since the retailer floated in 2007, although he netted £929m from the IPO. He has made several attempts over the years to push through a multi-million pound bonus scheme. The firm finally won a battle with investors last summer, but Ashley walked away days later. It has not paid a dividend since 2007.
■ Former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester gave up his £963,000 bonus in 2012 after coming under political and public pressure as the bank struggled to turn itself around.