{"id":624,"date":"2025-04-01T06:34:18","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T06:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/624\/"},"modified":"2025-04-01T06:34:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T06:34:18","slug":"what-we-know-as-primark-ceo-paul-marchant-resigns-over-inappropriate-behaviour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/624\/","title":{"rendered":"What we know as Primark CEO Paul Marchant resigns over ‘inappropriate behaviour’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of Primark<\/a> has resigned after an allegation from a woman about his behaviour.<\/p>\n

Paul Marchant stood down as chief executive<\/a> of the high street fashion brand with immediate effect on Monday after an investigation by external lawyers.<\/p>\n

Associated British Foods (ABF), which owns Primark, said Marchant “acknowledged his error of judgment and accepts that his actions fell below the standards expected”.<\/p>\n

It said Marchant co-operated with the investigation and apologised to the woman involved.<\/p>\n

Marchant had been in charge of the fast fashion chain for 16 years.<\/p>\n

What we know<\/p>\n

The details of the alleged incident have not been released, but ABF said it related to Marchant’s “behaviour towards (a woman) in a social environment”. It said he had acknowledged “his error of judgement”.<\/p>\n

The statement from the company said: \u201cHe has made an apology to the individual concerned, the ABF board and also to his Primark colleagues and others connected to the business.”<\/p>\n

\"File<\/p>\n

Paul Marchant had been boss of Primark since 2009. (PA)<\/p>\n

ABF said it will continue to offer support to the woman who brought the incident to its attention.<\/p>\n

George Weston, chief executive of ABF, said: \u201cI am immensely disappointed. At ABF, we believe that high standards of integrity are essential.<\/p>\n

\u201cActing responsibly is the only way to build and manage a business over the long-term. Colleagues and others must be treated with respect and dignity. Our culture has to be, and is, bigger than any one individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who is Paul Marchant?<\/p>\n

Born in the UK, Marchant joined Primark as chief operating officer in 2009 and later the same year became chief executive, taking over from the company’s founder, Arthur Ryan.<\/p>\n

He joined the company from New Look, where he was also chief operating officer, and had worked at a number of brands, including Debenhams, Topman and River Island.<\/p>\n

On its corporate website<\/a>, where Marchant is still listed as chief executive, Primark says: “Under Paul\u2019s leadership, Primark has become a truly international business. He has spearheaded our European and US expansion, more than doubling our store footprint since joining.”<\/p>\n

Primark’s performance<\/p>\n

Primark operates under its trade name Penneys in Ireland, where it is based, and has more than 450 shops.<\/p>\n

Primark makes up almost half of ABF\u2019s sales and brought in more than \u00a39.4bn in revenues in the year up to September 2024.<\/p>\n

In January, the firm cut its sales forecasts blaming \u201ccautious\u201d shoppers and unfavourable weather – predicting only \u201clow single-digit\u201d sales growth in 2025. In November, the company had said it expected \u201cmid single-digit growth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Its UK and Ireland sales fell by 4% in the 16 weeks to 4 January, although sales in Spain, France, Italy and the US all increased, with the latter reporting a 17% rise.<\/p>\n

Following Marchant’s resignation, ABF\u2019s finance director Eoin Tonge will act as interim boss of Primark, while Joana Edwards, ABF group financial controller, will replace Tonge.<\/p>\n

Shares in ABF, which also owns grocery brands such as Ryvita and Twinings, fell by 4% in early trading on Monday as a result of Marchant’s resignation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The head of Primark has resigned after an allegation from a woman about his behaviour. Paul Marchant stood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[491,492,51,490,489,488,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-abf","9":"tag-brian-lawless","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-chief-executive","12":"tag-paul-marchant","13":"tag-primark","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114261318863569859","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}