Roger Burnley in line to be Andy Clarke's Asda successor

With Asda CEO Andy Clarke having confirmed that he's stepping down, the longest-serving of the big four supermarket bosses himself has all but confirmed who his successor is likely to be.

Clarke told Retail Week in an interview before his departure was announced that Asda's incoming chief operating officer Roger Burnley, who is not set to start his new job until October, was being lined up as his successor.

Yorkshire-headquartered Asda had initially poached Yorkshireman Burnley, a former director at Sainsbury’s, to become Clarke's right hand man.

The writing appeared to be on the wall for Clarke last week (w/c 30 May), when Walmart chief executive David Cheesewright said the parent company was “very disappointed” at Asda’s weak performance in the UK supermarket price war. He noted: 'With the US business recovering, you can expect that we will shift the balance from protecting profit to protecting share.'

Asda posted its seventh consecutive quarter of declining sales in May, with like-for-like sales slipping 5.7 per cent in the first quarter.