Simons begins wielding the axe at Isosceles

DAVID SIMONS, the new chief executive of Isosceles, has wielded the axe in his second week in the job, sacking the Gateway personnel director amid speculation that he plans to whittle down the supermarket group's embarrassing surplus of finance chiefs.

In his first visible move as chief executive, Mr Simons, who arrived at Isosceles on 4 January, has sacked Brian Takare, who had been personnel director and a Gateway board member for about a year.

Three senior managers are jockeying to survive a purge in which two of their jobs are expected to go. They are Bob Nellist, the Isosceles finance director; Geoff Cooper, the Gateway finance director; and Khosrow Tahmasebi, the Isosceles company secretary and group financial controller.

Mr Simons, himself boasting a strong financial background - he was finance director of Storehouse - is understood to feel there is a surfeit of financial expertise and a shortage of grocery skills.

The search has begun for someone to run the core Gateway chain. More senior posts are expected to be scrapped as the group moves towards a merger of the Isosceles and Gateway boards. Isosceles borrowed more than pounds 2bn to buy Gateway in 1989.

Mr Simons is under immense pressure to restore morale at Gateway's Bristol headquarters and to send a signal to its staff, bankers and suppliers that he has the strategy to reverse its persistent decline.

Last month banks owed pounds 1.4bn agreed to a freeze on debt repayments and authorised pounds 30m more working capital, giving Mr Simons a five-month breathing space to come up with a credible strategy.

Mr Simons, who is given some of the credit for turning round Storehouse, has a far bigger task on his hands at Gateway. It has been progressively squeezed between the premium grocers such as Sainsbury and Tesco, with their huge store opening programmes, and the discounters.

The consultants Coopers & Lybrand are advising him. He is expected to modify the current strategy of converting Gateway shops into any of five different facias, including Somerfield, Food Giant, David Greig, SoLo and Gateway Village. Shelving some formats and selling parcels of stores are two options.

Christmas sales at Gateway have beaten expectations after a slow start in early December. In the Christmas week sales are said to have reached pounds 73m - pounds 3m ahead of budget.