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Tesco has reportedly begun sounding out potential replacements for its long-time chairman John Allan, according to Sky News.
City sources told Sky that a number of big boardroom figures had been approached by headhunters working for Tesco in recent weeks.
Allan will step down next year, by which time he will have served for nearly a decade and be ‘timed out’ under corporate governance guidelines.
The search for a new chair is being led internally by Byron Grote, the former BP finance chief, who will also step down from the board this year.
Lygon Group, a search firm, has done much of Tesco’s boardroom recruitment work in recent years, however Tesco declined to confirm that it was overseeing this process.
Allan is a former chairman of Dixons Stores Group, now known as Currys, and has also sat on the boards of blue-chip British companies including 3i Group, Royal Mail and Worldpay.
He was appointed as chairman of Tesco during the aftermath of the biggest crisis in the supermarket’s history, after the discovery of an accounting black hole which raised genuine questions about its survival.
Allan managed to lead the company through that alongside Sir Dave Lewis, the then chief executive, overseeing a number of large overseas business sales to save the company.
Retail Sector has approached Tesco for comment.
