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Value butchery chain Crawshaw Group (CRAW) has filled its vacant chief financial officer role and appointed a new chief commercial officer.
Alan Richardson will join the AIM-listed fresh meat and food-to-go retailer on 7 September from Morrisons. Kevin Boyd, currently Crawshaw MD, will also be appointed as chief commercial officer, with a wider remit and responsibility for buying, supply chain, factory operations, food production, logistics, food safety and health and safety.
Richardson has spent the past five years at Morrisons in a number of senior finance roles, most recently as finance director for group retail and logistics.
In addition to full P&L responsibility, capex and cashflow forecasting cycles for all 500 stores and eight logistics centres, he supported Morrisons’ late entry into the convenience market.
Prior to Morrisons, Richardson spent eight years with Asda where he held a number of senior finance roles, following his qualification as a chartered accountant with KPMG in 2001.
After a short handover with Lynda Sherratt, who revealed she was stepping down as CFO in July, Richardson will assume full responsibility for the FD and company secretary roles on 1 October following the interim results announcement.
CEO Noel Collett said: “Both Alan and Kevin’s appointments ensure that the board has been strengthened with the relevant experience, expertise and energy at a key time ahead of our accelerated store expansion, so we look to the future with great confidence”.
Shares opened down 1.4% this morning to 62.1p, but the group’s stock – the fastest growing on AIM in 2014 – is up 12.9% so far in the year to date.
Morning update
After the panic of world markets on Monday and the excitement of the CMA decision on the Poundland deal yesterday, it is all quiet today ahead of the long weekend.
Most stocks are in the red again following opening of trading amid more volatility in China, wiping off most of the gains from yesterday.
Yesterday in the City
After the carnage of Monday, the markets in London calmed somewhat yesterday with the FTSE 100 rebounding 3.1% to climb back above 6,000 points.
And almost all (with the exception of stevia producer PureCircle (PURE)) the listed grocery and fmcg stocks clawed back most of ‘Black Monday’ losses after China cut its interest rate.
In terms of news flow, a provisional green light from the CMA for Poundland’s (PLND) takeover of 99p Stores helped its shares rise 4.6% to 345.3p. And with the publication of the latest Kantar Worldpanel market share figures all the listed grocers’ share prices were up. Sainsbury’s (SBRY), which was the only one of the big four in growth, increased 2.5% to 237.7p; Morrisons (MRW) was up 1.5% to 166.2p; and Tesco (TSCO) bounced back 1.8% to 184.3p.
The biggest risers of the day were mostly the biggest fallers from the plunge on Monday. SABMiller (SAB) was back up 4.4% to 3,005p; Coca-Cola HBC (CCH) rose 3.9% to 1,304.1p; and Fever-Tree (FEVR) climbed 3.2% to 433.9p.
McColl’s (MCLS) rocketed by 7% yesterday to 155.8p – taking gains for the week so far to almost 8% following last week’s refinancing.
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