The following introductory remarks were made by David Tyler, Justin King and Mike Coupe at the media briefing this morning, following the announcement of Mike's succession in July.
David Tyler, Chairman
Good morning everybody, and thank you for joining us – particularly at such short notice. As you'll have seen today we're announcing that Justin has decided to step down as chief executive of Sainsbury's from July at our Annual General Meeting and we have appointed Mike Coupe as his successor. Now I know you'll be keen to hear from Justin and Mike themselves but before I hand over I think the right thing to do is to give you a little bit of background to this news.
We will be very sorry to see Justin go, while wishing him every possible success for the future. He has been an absolutely inspirational leader for Sainsbury's over the last decade and he's effected one of the most striking turnarounds in business. If you can cast your minds back to 2004 when he joined, Sainsbury's was close to being on its knees. Its shelves were often unstocked, morale was at rock bottom. Our market share was falling and profits were wholly inadequate. And from the moment he joined - that was in March 2004 - Justin was clearly on a mission to make Sainsbury's great again. And during this period he and his team have restored customer trust. They revitalised the energy and commitment of our colleagues and he reignited the company’s values so that today we can genuinely say that Sainsbury's is a place where people love to work and shop, with the quality of our corporate responsibility and culture seen as second to none.
Under his leadership, sales have grown more than 60% over the ten years and profits have trebled. But more than just restoring the past, the team have built strong new businesses in clothing and general merchandise, powerful convenience and online operations, as well as building a wide range of services for customers, culminating in the next few days in the acquisition of the full 100% ownership of Sainsbury's Bank.
So Justin will be leaving in July a very different Sainsbury's, and one that is far stronger than the one he inherited. The board and I, as well as our 157,000 colleagues thank him for what he's done for Sainsbury's, our shareholders and indeed all our stakeholders. We will certainly miss him.
And it's the mark of an extraordinary leader to take the decision to go when his audience is still asking for more but one of the many legacies that Justin leaves is a very talented management team ready to take the business on to the next stage and in particular I am delighted on behalf of the Board to be announcing that Mike Coupe will become CEO in July.
Succession planning is one of the most important tasks for any board, if not the most important and we've reviewed our options carefully over time with Mike always being seen as a key potential successor. But he's not been appointed because he was the only candidate we considered – we went through a thorough review also of external candidates. Mike has been appointed today because he is the outstanding candidate.
His experience of the industry is unparalleled. He's had stints in Tesco, in Asda, and also in Iceland, as well as almost ten years here at Sainsbury's. He is much admired and respected by our team as well as by our suppliers. He's run our supply chain and trading team throughout his time here, as well as taking responsibility for an extended period in the business for our marketing activities, our IT and our online business. He's got a great record of leadership and indeed of innovation within Sainsbury's having been central to the development here of our non-food business, our digital initiatives, brand match and plenty more initiatives. We have no doubt that he will be an outstanding CEO of this business.
Justin King, Chief Executive
I'll be brief. As you'll understand, for me it's not an easy decision to make. Emotionally I've invested ten years of my life in the leadership of Sainsbury's and I love the business, what it stands for and the 157,000 colleagues that it's been my great privilege to lead. But as David said part of leadership is knowing when the time is right, both for you but also for the business that you lead, to hand on the reins and I believe that time is now.
We've given ourselves an extended run for the handover. I will formally step down at the AGM in the summer and I'm looking forward very much to the next six months and helping the transition to Mike’s leadership. I've known Mike for a very long time, we've worked together before, 20 years ago at Asda, and it's been fantastic that he's been with us on the entire journey of the last ten years, making Sainsbury's great again and as David has already noted, the reputation he already enjoys in the business means he's absolutely the right candidate for me to hand over to.
There's really nothing else I think for me to say other than to thank you for all of your support over the years, we've got a few more occasions when no doubt we'll spar in the coming weeks and months ahead but for now I'll give Mike the opportunity to say a few words.
Mike Coupe, Group Commercial Director
Thank you Justin. Hello everyone. As you can imagine I'm absolutely delighted and incredibly proud to have been asked to become the new CEO at Sainsbury's. I've enjoyed my time here incredibly and I'm now very, very excited about the future, about leading the team within the Sainsbury's business. In my view we have the strongest team in retail, that's right across our business, in our stores, in our depots, in our store support centre and I'm really looking forward to working with our colleagues in the future.
Now it's a very tough trading environment but I'm confident that we can continue to perform strongly doing a great job for our customers whenever they shop with us.
Justin is leaving a fantastic legacy and he's worked very closely with me and we've worked together now for ten years in Sainsbury's but actually we've know each other for 20 years and I was working it out I think we've actually worked together for something like 17 out of the last 20 years. So we’ll be effecting a very close handover over the next six months and I'm looking forward to putting that in place and making sure that all works smoothly. So a fantastic opportunity for me and I'm really, really excited.