In a particularly quiet morning in both the papers and on the markets for the grocery industry, The Times (£) and The Daily Mail report on a multimillion-pound payout for former Morrisons boss Dalton Philips. The ousted CEO is set to be handed £3m this week in notice pay, untaken holidays and bonuses of almost £1.6m. Philips waived his bonus last year as Morrisons struggled to keep up with the rest of the grocery market. It comes ahead of Morrisons preliminary results on Thursday in which the retailer is expected to announced profits down by 50% to between £335m and £375m. The company is also widely expected to slash next year’s dividend payment to free up some cash to be used by new CEO David Potts for his turnaround plan.
The man in charge of Tesco’s in store dining has fallen victim to CEO Dave Lewis’ clear out at the supermarket. The Telegraph said Michael Holmes, who runs Harris+Hoole and Giraffe, has left Tesco. The paper called it a clear sign that one of former boss Philip Clarke’s key initiatives had failed.
In what is thought to be a first for a big British company, Marks & Spencer is to replace its dividend with a discounted gift card. The 190,000 investors, who between them control about a third of the company, will be able to exchange the cash they receive from their annual dividend payment for an in store gift card (The Telegraph) (The Daily Mail).
French organic wine producers have complained of receiving too little in return for their product. In an open letter, the almost 600 organic winemakers of the Aquitaine region said that they were “victims of unscrupulous profiteers” seeking to drive them out of business. It cost an average of €1,934 (£1,400) to produce a 900-litre barrel of wine, but they are only being paid €1,250 by merchants. “The result is that producers have a choice between bankruptcy or returning to conventional wines,” according to Patrick Boudon, chairman of the Union of Organic Wine Makers of Aquitaine (The Times £).
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