Two men were personally responsible yesterday for changing the stock market values of three leading British companies by a total of almost £800 million.

Marks & Spencer surprised the City by revealing that it had poached Marc Bolland, the highly regarded chief executive of the grocery chain Morrisons, to be its new chief executive. The announcement came hours after ITV said that it had hired Archie Norman, the former Conservative MP revered in the City for his rescue and turnaround of Asda, as its new chairman.

The two men both have repair jobs on their hands, with Mr Bolland having to fix the ailing food business at Marks & Spencer and Mr Norman needing a plan to help ITV to recover from an advertising slump. Both are renowned turnaround experts and are tipped to bring about significant changes in the way that the companies are run, potentially affecting millions of shoppers and TV viewers.

The appointments bring to an end two of corporate Britain’s longestrunning boardroom sagas.

Within hours of his announcement, Mr Bolland alone was responsible for shifting the stock market values of two of England’s best-known companies by more than £700 million.

News that Mr Bolland was joining Marks & Spencer sent shares of Britain’s biggest clothes retailer up by almost 6 per cent and added £343 million to its stock market value, while knocking £384 million from the value of Morrisons, whose shares fell by nearly 5 per cent. The arrival of Mr Norman at ITV, meanwhile, was enough to increase the broadcaster’s stock market worth by £70 million, as its shares rose by almost 4 per cent.

Mr Bolland, a 49-year-old Dutchman, transformed the fortunes of Morrisons since he joined the UK’s fourth-biggest supermarket chain just over three years ago. Having spent the previous several decades at Heineken, the Dutch brewer, he was relatively unknown in the UK, but quickly won plaudits for the way he sorted out the previously botched integration by Morrisons of its rival, Safeway. Under his leadership, Morrisons is generally acknowledged to have won the ferocious battle between grocers for Christmas shoppers, thanks partly to a series of advertisements starring celebrities including Lulu and Denise van Outen.

Sir Stuart Rose, the Marks & Spencer executive chairman, said that one of the main reasons for hiring Mr Bolland was the experience that he would bring as the retailer continues to expand rapidly overseas.

He said: “We don’t live in a national world any more, we live in a global, international world, and Marc is an international man. We are a business that wants to go international. He’s not just a turnaround expert. He has 30 years of marketing experience with a global beer brand ... He did a great job at Morrisons, but that’s not what it’s all about.”

Sir Stuart dismissed fears among some observers that Britain’s largest clothes retailer will shortly be run by someone who has never worked in that field. “The fact that he might not know whether to buy a pink dress, green dress or yellow dress might have been an issue in 2004, when I started out, but it isn’t now.”

Sir Stuart, who will spend up to six weeks early next year handing over to his successor before becoming nonexecutive chairman of Marks & Spencer, did not say how much Mr Bolland would be paid. However, since Mr Bolland will be giving up £3.9 million of Morrisons shares, he is expected to receive a similar sum from Marks & Spencer as a “golden hello”. He can also expect an improvement on the pay package that he received at Morrisons, which last year totalled £1.7 million, including contributions to his pension scheme.

Mr Bolland, who also works as a part-time consultant to the Dutch footballing giant Ajax, said: “M&S is one of the world’s great brands and I am very pleased to be given the opportunity to lead the company forward at this exciting stage.” City analysts said that Marks & Spencer had chosen well in appointing Mr Bolland, who beat internal candidates including John Dixon, the company’s head of food, and Ian Dyson, its finance director.

Caroline Gulliver, an analyst at the stockbroker Execution, said: “His motivational leadership style and fastmoving consumer goods marketing experience should stand him in good stead . . . The appointment is an exciting development for M&S but is not without risks given the structural decline of M&S’s food operating margins and his lack of clothing experience.”

Over at ITV, the appointment of Mr Norman — who will succeed Michael Grade in January — was equally well received, with analysts applauding the arrival of what one described as “the TV repair man from Asda”.

Alex Wisch, of Standard & Poor’s Equity Research, said: “Although Mr Norman lacks the media experience that some others could have brought, we believe his stint in politics could prove invaluable in dealing with the regulator over the next 12 months. We expect him to continue to negotiate — perhaps more successfully than Michael Grade — for the complete removal of the contract rights renewal mechanism that protects advertisers and hurts the broadcaster’s sales.

“At best, we believe that in the long run he might be able to engineer the sale of ITV to a strategic buyer.”

Mr Norman, who will receive an annual salary of £300,000 and £623,400 of shares to be issued to him during the next three years, said: “There are few opportunities that would have tempted me back into the public company arena, but ITV is definitely one of them. It is an irresistible challenge, a great brand ... facing an imperative for change: the challenge of adapting to compete in a fragmented digital media world.”

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