M&S boss attempts to show investors the retailer's got talent

LONDON BRIEFING:There is a feeling Sir Stuart is not taking the search for his successor seriously enough, writes FIONA WALSH

DOES MARKS & Spencer’s Sir Stuart Rose harbour secret ambitions to become a showbiz Svengali? It seems a pertinent question to pose after yesterday’s investor day – the first hosted by the retailer in a decade – descended into a corporate version of Britain’s Got Talent.

The venue was a replica M&S store in west London, used by the group for testing new layouts and training staff. Sharing the stage with Sir Stuart were the trio of M&S executives who have been tipped as potential candidates to succeed him as head of the British clothing retailer: finance director Ian Dyson, head of food John Dixon and Kate Bostock, who runs the fashion side.

The audience was an unforgiving group of almost 100 of the company’s leading investors and retail analysts, all keen to see how the M&S hopefuls acquitted themselves. It was Sir Stuart himself who first drew comparisons with Simon Cowell’s entertainment show, likening the presentations to an “M&S has got talent” contest. The market was not so convinced. Midway through the proceedings M&S shares started to fall and failed to recover, ending the day down by more than 4 per cent.

So, what did yesterday’s eagerly awaited presentations produce?

There were plans to improve the group’s lacklustre online offer; talk of expansion overseas, in central and eastern Europe as well as India and China; and the promise that upgrades to the group’s IT systems and supply chain would bring in annual benefits of £250 million (€268 million) by 2015.

None of the analysts and investors actually asked about succession but, in terms of performance on the day, new boy Dixon was judged by many to have given the most assured account of himself.

While the sight of three executives jockeying for position so publicly might have some sort of entertainment value, it is hardly a responsible way to decide the succession for such a crucial job.

There was a feeling in the City yesterday that Sir Stuart is not taking this as seriously as he might, with fears that the search for the new MS boss could end up in as big a mess as it has at ITV. Rather than planning talent contests, Sir Stuart should be minding investors’ sensibilities, having angered so many of them by flouting corporate governance when he took the post of executive chairman.

The performance of the internal candidates may ultimately have little bearing on who gets the chief executive’s job.

Although the M&S boss is thought to be keen to hand over to one of his lieutenants, many investors would prefer to see someone brought in from outside.

Yesterday’s performance may have served to confirm their view that an injection of new blood is urgently required.

THE DAVID Hockney painting that once hung in the lavishly decorated office of Sir Fred Goodwin, the disgraced former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), may soon be on show in public once again.

It is one of more than 2,200 works of art owned by RBS in what is thought to be the largest corporate art collection in Britain.

Amassed over many decades, the collection includes works by noted painters including Sir William McTaggart, Johann Zoffany, Joshua Reynolds, LS Lowry and Jack Vettriano.

The scale of the art treasure trove, which is worth many millions, only really became apparent when it was catalogued earlier this year. Some pictures decorate the boardrooms and executive suites at RBS and others hang in its branches, but hundreds more have been languishing in storage for years.

One painting, the acclaimed Sir David Wilkie portrait of Daniel O’Connell, is already on permanent loan to Ulster Bank in Dublin. It was handed over at the Irish Embassy in London by Sir Fred himself seven years ago, as “a mark of the strong cultural links between Scotland and Ireland”.

RBS came by the portrait, painted in 1838, as part of its takeover of National Commercial Bank of Scotland (NCBS).

NCBS bought the English and Welsh branches of the National Bank, originally the National Bank of Ireland, in 1966. O’Connell was one of a number of prominent Irishmen who set up the National Bank of Ireland in 1835.

RBS has resisted repeated requests to exhibit the works but now, a year after the British government launched its historic bailout of the bank, the collection is to be opened up to public view.

The bank is drawing up plans for several exhibitions and to lend out individual works. There are also hopes that the collection will be photographed for viewing on the internet, enabling the taxpayers who now own the paintings to enjoy them.

Fiona Walsh writes for the Guardian newspaper in London