Profile - Malcolm Walker: Supermarket boss who has set his sights on capturing Iceland

MALCOLM Walker is nothing like the supermarket bosses I’ve come across before.

Forget the charm and cheesiness that frequently accompanies the role, Walker is funny, down to earth and doesn’t take himself too seriously.

He certainly has to be the only retail chief executive who is proud of the fact he’s been fired from two of his three jobs.

The bluff Yorkshireman is now hoping to get his hands back on the chain he founded in 1970, Iceland Foods.

He is understood to be up against two Yorkshire rivals – Leeds-based Asda and Bradford-based Morrisons – for the 750-store chain.

First round bids are due in this week and while the two Yorkshire supermarket chains will have to get their bids on the table, Walker has the luxury of being able to sit on the sidelines.

Under a complicated shareholder agreement all Walker has to do to bag Iceland is match the highest bid.

Walker first offered £1bn to buy back the budget supermarket chain this time last year, but the offer was rejected

Walker and two other senior directors already own 23 per cent. The other 77 per cent has been put up for sale by two Icelandic banks that inherited the stake after the collapse of the Baugur retail interests.

Walker seems pretty unimpressed by his rivals.

“Sainsbury’s and Tesco can’t bid for competition reasons and Asda and Morrisons probably won’t bid for the whole lot. There would be too many stores to dispose of. It could be there are no bidders,” he says airily.

Analysts have speculated that Walker and his team will probably keep the bulk of the Iceland operation while a rival retailer soaks up the remnants.

Clive Black at Shore Capital is putting his money on management retaining the core of the Iceland operation while Asda and/or Morrisons buy between 100 and 200 stores. Black says that such a deal would help fund the acquisition.

So has Walker held talks with Morrisons and Asda?

He laughs out loud. “I couldn’t possibly say if we’re talking to Morrisons or Asda,” he chides.

So if he wins control of Iceland, what would he change?

Nothing, he tells me, which is quite a statement until you consider that Walker has overseen 36 years of record results at Iceland.

“Of all the years I’ve been involved with Iceland we increased profits every year except in 1996,” he says.

It’s an impressive track record. Iceland reported a 15 per cent increase in pre-tax profits to £155.5m in the year to March 25. Like-for-like sales rose by over two per cent.

Walker says that unlike his rivals, Iceland has continued to perform well over the past six months.

“We’re doing exceptionally well,” he says. “We’re benefiting from the economic downturn – bad times play to our strengths. All our customers will shop at Tesco or Asda first and they come to us as a secondary shop. Customers are still shopping at Tesco and Asda, but they’re spending more with us than they were before.”

This fits in with the new trend among shoppers for three or four small shops a week instead of big weekly trips as customers avoid big till receipts.

Walker is a firm believer that work should be fun and he’s very proud of the fact that Iceland has come sixth in the 2011 Sunday Times’ survey of the Best Big Companies to Work For in the UK.

“For us staff motivation is why we’re successful,” he says.

“When we came back morale was on the floor (Walker was ousted from Iceland in 2001 but returned in 2005). People were leaving the company in droves. Iceland was paying minimum wage and was the employer of last resort.”

Iceland is now the second best payer on the high street behind Tesco.

Part of the staff morale programme is raising funds for charity and earlier this month Iceland staff hit the £1m mark in their bid to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK, Iceland’s charity of the year

As part of the fundraising, Walker and his son Richard climbed 23,000 ft to the North Col of Mount Everest in May.

“Getting to the top of the North Col was the most frightening and physically demanding thing I have ever done in my life,” he says.

“I will admit I daydreamed about maybe going further and trying for the summit itself, but it was never a suicide mission.”

He points out that four people on other expeditions died that day trying to reach the summit.

The Everest trek inspired Iceland staff to take on their own fundraising challenges, from darts tournaments to a mass climb of Mount Snowdon.

“I am immensely proud of the inventiveness and commitment that Iceland’s people have shown,” he says.

With typical disregard for the norm, Walker says that each year Iceland chooses a charity that’s unfashionable and underfunded.

“No-one talks about Alzheimer’s, yet it affects so many people,” he says.

Walker was born in Grange Moor near Dewsbury in 1946 and lived there until he was 18 when he left home to become a trainee manager at Woolworths. He subsequently toured Yorkshire working for Woolworths at stores in Huddersfield, Heckmondwike, Leeds and Scarborough.

He founded Iceland in 1970 with a single small shop in Shropshire selling loose frozen food.

But the venture prompted his dismissal by Woolworths in 1971.

By 2000, Iceland had £2bn of sales, 22,000 employees and over 700 shops.

Walker was chairman and chief executive through 30 years of continuous sales growth, except for the aforementioned hiccough in 1996.

He was fired for the second time in his life in 2001 after the company released a profits warning after Walker had sold £13.5m in shares.

The Serious Fraud Office subsequently cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Walker says that Iceland floundered under its new management. It was taken over in February 2005, when Walker returned as chief executive and a member of the consortium that took the company private.

He has been married to his wife Rhianydd for more than 40 years and they have three grown-up children, five grandchildren and another two on the way.

Outside work, he says his greatest enthusiasms are for his home, garden and family, good food and wine, ski-ing, sailing and shooting

Looking back on his life, Walker claims that if he’d done well at school, he would have had a “proper job”.

“I would have been an accountant or a teacher,” he says bluffly, ignoring the fact that he has an estimated fortune of £166m.

Malcolm Walker Factfile

Title: Chief executive Iceland Foods

Date of birth: 11.02.46

Place of birth: Grange Moor

Education: Grange Moor Primary School, Mirfield Grammar School – “where I got O Level woodwork”

First job: trainee manager at Woolworths.

Car driven: Bentley

Favourite film: Shawshank Redemption

Favourite holiday destination: Anywhere hot

Last book read: The Stieg Larsson trilogy

What I am most proud of: Building Iceland and bringing up three children who are amazingly well grounded and balanced.