Asda poaches Sainsbury’s executive Roger Burnley to be chief operating officer

Sky News reports that Burnley, the former Sainbury’s retail and operations director, will become a chief candidate to take over Andy Clarke as chief executive of Asda when the latter steps down.

The second quarter figure was also considerably better than its rivals who have found it harder to cope with the rise of German discounters Aldi and Lidl. He leaves Sainsbury’s Retail & Operations teams in excellent shape, along with our best wishes for the future’.

Sainsbury’s said Burnley had left with immediate effect and commenced 12-months “gardening leave” as per the terms of his contract, given that Asda is a direct competitor.

Burnley’s appointment will come just weeks after Asda reported its worst-ever quarterly performance, with sales from stores open for at least a year down 4.7% in the 11 weeks to June 30.

He worked at Asda between 1996 and 2002, latterly as supply chain director prior to which he was part of the core team responsible for integrating Asda into American parent Wal-Mart following the acquisition in 1999.

Mr Clarke admitted that Mr Burnley is joining the company at a time of “unprecedented turbulence” in the supermarket sector.

Burnley re-joins Asda during a testing period.

In the interim period, CEO Mike Coupe will assume responsibility for the role.

In recent days, Tesco has unveiled a new scheme aimed at tempting shoppers from rivals by offering to match their prices even when products are on promotion.

Coupe said: “I would like to thank Roger for his significant contribution to Sainsbury’s over the last decade”.

Sainsbury’s said that it had started the search for Mr Burnley’s replacement and that the strategy for Christmas was already in hand.

In lunchtime trading, Sainsbury’s shares on the FTSE 100 index were down 5.2p, or 1.9 per cent to 266.0p.