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Kingfisher - the directors

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Kingfisher (LSE:KGF) has a very poor-quality board, even though it contains names of the great and the good from the European business world.  There is no one on the board who learnt his/her trade through Kingfisher trading.  There isn’t anyone who has worked in home improvement or DIY retailing. How are they supposed to know what it’s like to serve customers on the shop floor, drive the vans or share lunch with the lowest employees?

The board consists of people who are busy running other companies, with keen interests in other industrial sectors, or are the semi-retired. None of them has bought a substantial shareholding.

But they each receive a large remuneration package.

What must it be like for middle and senior managers – having gone through the Kingfisher graduate programme and working their way up – to find that none of their own is considered worthy of adding their voice to boardroom discussion?

A firm needs a managerial cohort in depth.  It needs experienced, wily executives at all levels drawn from a pool of talent that continuously being developed.

When a handful of these “home-grown” people reach the highest levels in the organisation they are far more likely to benefit from the respect of those they work with at lower level in the organisation.

They know the subtle tricks of the retail game; they know the characters up and down the hierarchy; they know when a plan is feasible or pie in the sky; they know how to play one supplier against another.

Surely, this implicit knowledge and this respect of colleagues is to be valued?   If there are no experienced insiders at or near the top it sends a clear message to aspiring younger managers.  That message is: take your talent elsewhere, the chairman of the board is only interested in those picked from talent pool outside of your industry.

They haven’t even allowed the interim finance chief to sit on the main board.  Karen Witts, the former FD, left the company in the spring to become FD at Compass. The CEO, Lowry is leaving in September.

Thierry Garnier is to be the new CEO.  His claim to fame is the building of Carrefour’s Asian business in China.  He spent 22 years in Carrefour’s retail empire.

Andrew Cosslett, Chairman.

Joined Kingfisher in 2017.  Worked his way up at Unilever (branding and marketing), then Cadbury Schweppes, then CEO for InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), then CEO for Fitness First.  Kingfisher remuneration is £495,000.  Holds 146,505 shares in KGF, worth less than one year of fees collected from KGF.

Mark Seligman, NED,

Joined Kingfisher in 2012.  He has an accounting and investment banking background, starting at Price Waterhouse, then SG Warburg, BZW and Credit Suisse First Boston. Remuneration £85,000. Owns shares (15,000) worth a fraction of the amount he takes in remuneration.

Pascal Cagni, NED

Joined Kingfisher in 2010. He has worked at Apple (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa), and Packard Bell, NEC and Booz Allen Hamilton. Remuneration £65,000. His KGF shares (30,450) are worth one year’s remuneration.

Jeff Carr, NED

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