Leighton put in frame for Co-op chairman job

Allan Leighton was reported last night to be in talks to become the first independent chairman of the battered Co-operative Group.

Sky News said that the former Asda chief executive, who has previously cited his father’s career as a Co-op store manager in interviews, was negotiating with the mutually-owned group’s board and that a meeting could be announced later this week.

The Co-op has been hit hard in recent years by large losses at its banking arm, a decline in revenues from its supermarkets and the resignation of its chief executive, Euan Sutherland, in March 2014.