It has a great history and a great reputation, and with the new blood that will be coming in with me I am sure that we can regain the high ground that it used to dominate for so many years.”Mr Rose made no secret of his desire to take the helm at M&S, where he spent 17 years of his early career. For weeks he has waged a semi-public campaign to get the board to consider him. Shareholders took up the baton on his behalf after Mr Green’s bid intentions became known.The final details of his pay and bonuses were still being hammered out last night, but his package is likely to include substantial share-based incentives.Mr Holmes was informed yesterday that the non-executives had lost confidence in his leadership, but he had not previously known that they had begun the search to replace him. The board is grateful to Luc and Roger for putting in place many of the building blocks for the sustained recovery and growth of the business,” he said.Mr Vandevelde, who had already agreed to resign when a successor was found, has left the company immediately with a pay-off of around £450,000. Recent declining sales in the core womenswear business sealed his fate.Mr Myners, who is also the chairman of Aspen Insurance and Guardian Media Group, was the senior non-executive director at M&S and will receive no additional pay as its interim chairman. He described Mr Rose’s appointment as “a very significant day for M&S” and praised his record in retailing.”The board is very pleased to have appointed someone of Stuart’s experience and retail prowess to lead the company into the next phase of its strategic development. Just last week, at M&S’s final results, he attempted to mount a spirited defence of his position, promising a radical overhaul of the business.

A former management consultant, Mr Holmes has long been criticised for lacking retail flair – a criticism which has also been directed at the wider board. Stuart Rose, the feted retailer who sold Arcadia to Philip Green in 2002, was last night parachuted in as chief executive of Marks & Spencer, to defend the high street giant from a takeover bid expected from Mr Green this week. A Moscow court upheld a previous ruling that annulled shares issued by Yukos to buy 57.5 per cent of Sibneft.Mr Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, had sought the cancellation as a means to unravel the deal Yukos had sought to keep the transaction intact.. The Financial Services Authority’s evidence of alleged collusion among the 21 firms involved in the split-capital investment trust d?cle is based entirely on conversations held after June 2001 – once the problems in the sector were already well under way, sources close to the investigation said. He then joined Argos to head up the defence against an ultimately successful bid from GUS, pocketing £540,000 for just three months’ work.

In recent years, his record as a day-to-day manager has been eclipsed by his reputation for securing a great deal for exiting shareholders ­ and for himself.Mr Rose collected £600,000 from Arcadia in 1997 when he finished his first stint at the group. While he has amassed a personal fortune in his career in retail, he has insisted that money is not his “primary driver” His reputation is as important. Mr Rose said he needed to find a new post, despite having walked away from the Top Shop-to-Dorothy Perkins retailer with £26m.Mr Rose was not allowed to complete the task he set himself to turn around Arcadia when he took the chief executive job two years previously He said when he departed: “I’m a little sad. I said I’d stay here for five years but we have to do the right thing for shareholders.”He will need quickly to demonstrate not just his determination to turn round Marks & Spencer’s fortunes, but his strategy for doing so. One of these was set up and chaired by the Association of Investment Trusts, the industry trade body.The FSA’s independent enforcement committee, the Regulatory Decisions Committee, will now hear the cases next month, with appeals likely to be heard at the Financial Services & Markets Tribunal next year.. Investors are being asked whether they want to take the rough or the smooth, the hard-talking showmanship of Philip Green or the well-groomed and courteous manner of Stuart Rose. That he has now got the chief executive post would please many who felt he was much better suited to that position.