Bunhill: Hardman looks east

ONE-TIME Asda supermarket chief John Hardman has plunged back into the business world, although few in Britain are likely to notice the splash.

The deposed chairman and chief executive is currently to be seen trading frozen food to the Czechs. He's teamed up with a couple of old acquaintances to run a former state-owned company producing mixed veg and chips.

Hardman, 53, assured me it is just a part-time affair. However, he is spending more and more of his time there, and said he had not ruled out a return to the big time as boss of his own food empire in the east.

'Its a place of tremendous opportunity. But they need the support and management guidance of a Western executive,' said Hardman.

He spent 10 years at Asda, building it into the UK's fourth largest supermarket chain by the time he departed last year. After a couple of wrong moves in the expansionary Eighties (notably, buying MFI), he left after a nod and a wink from dissatisfied institutional shareholders.

'I took some time off and have been taking a very relaxed view of life,' he said. Hardman is somewhat vague about how he got involved in such an unlikely venture - one he freely describes as 'bloody different'.

'Some friends of mine in the food trade in the UK and abroad said they were starting this business and would I like to join them.'

His role, he says, is that of 'a non-executive director who goes a little deeper'. Whatever that might mean, Hardman still seems to have the predatory instincts that befit a man whose middle name is Nimrod. So it is unlikely he will be content to remain on the sidelines in such a 'land of opportunity'.