Sir Ken Morrison: Methuselah is the Solomon of supermarkets

Sir Ken Morrison cares little for PR, governance or fancy ideas, says Heather Tomlinson, but the City loves him

It is difficult to find anyone who has a bad word to say about Sir Ken Morrison, chairman of the supermarket chain Wm Morrison. To be called the best food retailer in the world is flattering. It is praise indeed when it comes from Allan Leighton, the former chief executive of Asda and current chairman of Bhs, Lastminute.com and Consignia.

"He is streets ahead of everybody in terms of food retailing," says Leighton. "When I was running Asda, who were we looking at to copy and envy? It was Morrisons."

Sir Ken has built the chain up from his father's business of a few market stalls and shop units in Bradford to be the fifth-largest supermarket group in the country, with a market value of over £3bn. He became chairman the same year that Sir Terry Leahy, chief executive of Tesco, was born.

Sir Ken's first supermarket opened in a converted cinema in Bradford in 1961. The company floated on the stock market in 1967 at 10 shillings and sixpence (52.5p) a share, when it had just four supermarkets.

It now has 114 and plans to expand further, particularly in the south of England, where it is virtually unknown.

Morrison caters for low-income shoppers who want cheap food, a market well served by the likes of Kwik Save, Asda and Tesco. But Sir Ken has always done things his own way. The company owns food manufacturing operations, which is rare among supermarkets, and has steered clear of the strategies pursued by Tesco and Asda, which are expanding into non-food items like CDs, garden furniture and electrical goods. "He sticks to his knitting and the punters love it," says one analyst.

"I would never argue with anything a Morrisons executive says, because they have such a good understanding of their customer," another analyst enthuses. "It's a bloody good business. You can imagine a London consultant going up there and saying, 'You should be offering more non-food products' and Morrisons reeling out 20 customers saying they're not interested."

The key to Sir Ken's success lies not in fancy ideas, says Richard Hyman, chairman of retail consultant Verdict Research, but in the way he implements his simple ethos. "First a company must have the strategy, second it must have the processes and conduits that will translate strategy into operational effectiveness in hundreds of different locations," he says. "Decisions are made in the head office, but they have to make it work on a practical level."

Leighton agrees: "Sir Ken has a great ability to be directionally right, and is absolutely excellent at detail. His execution of ideas is better than that of anyone I know."

Sir Ken is now the longest-serving chairman of any FTSE 100 company. In common with other boardroom veterans, such as John Ritblat at property group British Land, he doesn't have a lot of respect for new-fangled ideas of corporate governance.

To prevent scandals like Enron and WorldCom, so the latest thinking goes, a board should have plenty of independent directors and the roles of chairman and chief executive should be split.

Morrisons doesn't have any independent directors and Sir Ken is all-powerful.

He also doesn't have any truck with spin and hype. Morrisons has no City public relations firm to deal with investors or journalists, and Sir Ken rarely gives media interviews or City presentations.

But he is forgiven, because operationally he hasn't put a foot wrong in four decades. "You could argue that the direc- tors could be more City friendly, but then why would they want to do that when they can get on with running the business?" says one analyst.

"The disclosure at finals and interims is very good. If you can get hold of the finance director, he's very helpful, but he's not cruising around town lunching with analysts every day."

But while Sir Ken doesn't speak with a silver tongue, he's not slow to speak his mind. "He's a true Yorkshireman: he calls a spade a shovel," says Judith Donovan, who was until recently the president of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce and has seen Sir Ken at many local functions over the last 20 years. "A lot of people who have the old Sirs have their nose in the air, but you don't feel that with Ken. He has a very dry sense of humour, though from what I've heard, he's a shrewd, hard negotiator."

His reputation is that of a gruff Yorkshireman who doesn't suffer fools gladly. "He is blunt but not rude; he's straight to the point," says a fund manager who has known him for years.

But Sir Ken will take every opportunity to improve his business, and get the gossip on what his competitors are up to. "When I go and visit him, I leave the meeting feeling that he found out more from me than I did from him," says the fund manager. "He's very canny. He lives, sleeps, breathes, eats Morrisons."

"He's a private man," says Leighton. "He came from a family business – it has his name and his parents' name above the door. That means a huge amount to him, he's very proud. That's why he wakes up every day and tries to make it better."

The City does have concerns over how fast the company will grow, but it is a question of by how much Morrisons is to grow rather than if it grows. The only criticism of Sir Ken is that he's mortal; the City is concerned about who will take the reins when he's no longer there.

A company with such a strong family heritage might be expected to be grooming its children. However, William Morrison, Sir Ken's son, who works in the marketing department, is still in his twenties and is not yet ready to take over. The man who had been lined up for the job, John Dowd, recently died prematurely.

"The one concern about the company is the succession," says Mr Hyman at Verdict Research. "Morrisons won't die when Ken dies. The question is less dramatic: how would it perform? But it won't wither and die."

One wag described Sir Ken as the Methuselah of UK food retailing, referring to the biblical character who lived to be 969 years old.

Sir Ken, 71 next month, is held in such high regard that some might believe he could manage a similar age. His shareholders certainly hope so.