The announcement that Rightmove PLC (LSE:RMV) boss Peter Brooks-Johnson is leaving makes him the 11th FTSE 100 boss to quit this year.
Even investors who are not involved in the online property portal may wonder at the move, especially if it suggests the chief executive is looking to get out at the top of the market or if it could be part of a trend with wider significance.
Indeed, with the blue-chip index normally seeing between 12 and 13 chief executives depart in an average year, there’s clearly something happening in 2022 to spur such levels of boardroom musical chairs.
Brooks-Johnson has been CEO of the company for five years, after being promoted from operations chief among his 11 years before that.
During his time as boss, he has overseen its promotion to the FTSE 100, with the shares up around 25% (it would have been 80% at the start of the year) and churned out almost £750mln in shareholder returns.
Throughout most of this time, the UK property market has continued its seemingly inexorable climb, suggesting the board were working in supportive conditions.
Rightmove shares fell 5% on the news of his departure, taking them down around 33% since the start of the year.
The change of any CEO leads to investor uncertainty, though this will be the third time Rightmove has changed leaders since floating in 2006, with Brooks-Johnson and his predecessor both being promoted from within the business.
As regards the wider trend, Rightmove’s move follows announcements of CEO departures at fellow FTSE 100 constituents Anglo American, Burberry, B&M European Value Retail, Johnson Matthey, M&G, Prudential, Smith & Nephew, Rolls-Royce, Taylor Wimpey and United Utilities.
One worry for investors is that the boss is looking to get out at the top of the market (see Tesco’s Terry Leahy) and that is followed by several lean years – either they were spooked by something in the company or the wider market, or think the business cannot be taken any further (without complications).
It is a natural desire of a CEO to wants to get with glowing reputation still intact and moving to a juicy new role in a year or two, or maybe a portfolio career as a sage non-executive.
With markets being as they are, consumer sentiment taking a dive amid soaring inflation, troubling geopolitics and – significantly for the housing market – the first major monetary policy tightening since the 2008 financial crisis.
Looking at which CEOs could be next, there’s some helpful research below from AJ Bell on those blue-chip bosses that have been in the role for the longest.
Some, like Next’s Simon Wolfson, Ocado’s Tim Steiner and JD Sports’ Peter Cowgill are almost synonymous with their companies and it would be a big surprise when they do come to hang up their hats.
But it will happen and the uncomfortable conditions of 2022 could bring forth some unexpected unseatings.
FTSE 100 CEO Longevity
Company, CEO, When started, Years in the job
1 Next PLC (LSE:NXT), Simon Wolfson May-2001, 21
2 Dechra Pharmaceuticals PLC (LSE:DPH), Ian Page, Nov-2001, 20.5
3 Ocado Group PLC (LSE:OCDO), Tim Steiner, Jan-2002, 20.4
4 JD Sports Fashion, Peter Cowgill, Mar-2004, 18.2
5 B & M European Value Retail, Simon Arora, Jan-2005, 17.4
6 Halma, Andrew Williams, Feb-2005, 17.2
7 Associated British Foods PLC (LSE:ABF), George Weston, Apr-2005 17.1
8 Berkeley Group Holdings PLC, Rob Perrins, Sep-2009 12.7
9 RELX PLC (LSE:REL), Erik Engstrom, Nov-2009 12.5
10 DS Smith PLC (LSE:SMDS), Miles Roberts, May-2010, 12.0
11 United Utilities, Steve Mogford, Mar-2011 11.2
12 SEGRO PLC (LSE:SGRO), David Sleath, Apr-2011, 11.0
13 Experian (LSE:EXPN) PLC, Brian Cassin, Apr-2012, 10.0
14 Melrose Industries PLC (LSE:MRO, OTC:MLSPF), Simon Peckham, May-2012, 10.0
15 3i PLC, Simon Borrows, May-2012, 10.0
16 Legal and General PLC, Nigel Wilson, Jun-2012, 9.9
17 Fresnillo PLC (LSE:FRES), Octavio Alvidrez, Aug-2012, 9.7
18 AstraZeneca PLC (LSE:AZN), Pascal Soriot, Oct-2012, 9.6
19 Diageo PLC (LSE:DGE), Ivan Menezes, Jul-2013, 8.9
20 SSE PLC (LSE:SSE), Alistair Phillips-Davies, Jul-2013, 8.9
21 Rentokil Initial, Andy Ransom, Oct-2013 8.6
22 CRH, Albert Manifold Jan-2014 8.4
23 Informa, Stephen Carter Jan-2014 8.4
24 Royal Dutch Shell PLC (LSE:SHEL, NYSE:SHEL), Ben van Beurden Jan-2014 8.4
25 Spirax-Sarco Engineering (LSE:SPX), Nick Anderson Jan-2014 8.3
26 Severn Trent, Liv Garfield Apr-2014 8.1
27 Pershing Square, Anne Farlow (chair) Oct-2014 7.6
28 Croda, Steve Foots Oct-2014 7.6
29 Electrocomponents, Lindsley Ruth Apr-2015 7.1
30 Intertek, Andre Lacroix May-2015 7.0
31 Standard Chartered, Bill Winters Jun-2015 6.9
32 Barratt Developments, David Thomas Jul-2015 6.9
33 Rolls Royce, Warren East Jul-2015 6.8
34 Smurfit Kappa, Tony Smurfit Sep-2015 6.7
35 Whitbread, Alison Brittain Jan-2016 6.3
36 National Grid, John Pettigrew Apr-2016 6.1
37 Schroders, Peter Harrison Apr-2016 6.1
38 Antofagasta, Ivan Arriagada Apr-2016 6.1
39 Bunzl, Frank van Zanten Apr-2016 6.1
40 Endeavour Mining, Sebastien de Montessus Jun-2016 5.9
41 GlaxoSmithKline, Emma Walmsley Apr-2017 5.1
42 Hargreaves Lansdown, Chris Hill Apr-2017 5.1
43 Rightmove, Peter Brooks-Johnson May-2017 5.0
44 InterContinental Hotels PLC, Keith Barr Jul-2017 4.9
45 BAE Systems, Charles Woodburn Jul-2017 4.9
46 DCC, Donal Murphy Jul-2017 4.8
47 International Capital Group, Benoit Durteste 25-Jul-17 4.8
48 M&G PLC (LSE:MNG), John Foley Aug-2017 4.7
49 Coca-Cola HBC, Zoran Bogdanovic, Dec-2017 4.4
50 Meggitt, Tony Wood Jan-2018 4.4
51 ITV PLC (LSE:ITV), Carolyn McCall, Jan-2018 4.4
52 St. James's Place, Andrew Croft, Jan-2018 4.4
53 Compass, Dominic Blakemore, Jan-2018 4.4
54 Flutter Entertainment PLC (LSE:FLTR), Peter Jackson Jan-2018 4.3
55 Hikma Pharmaceutial PLC, Sigurdur Olafsson, Feb-2018 4.2
56 Howden Joiner, Andrew Livingston, Apr-2018 4.1
57 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC (LSE:SMT), Fiona McBain (chair), Jun-2018, 3.9
58 London Stock Exchange PLC, David Schwimmer, Aug-2018 3.8
59 Sage, Steve Hare, Aug-2018, 3.7
60 WPP, Mark Read, Sep-2018, 3.7
61 Vodafone PLC, Nick Read, Oct-2018, 3.6
62 Unilever PLC (LSE:ULVR), Alan Jope, Jan-2019, 3.4
63 BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A), Philip Jansen, Feb-2019, 3.3
64 British American Tobacco PLC (LSE:BATS), Jack Bowles, Apr-2019 3.1
65 Ashtead, Brendan Horgan, May-2019 3.0
66 Avast, Ondrej Vlcek, Jul-2019, 2.9
67 HBSC, Noel Quinn, Aug-2019 , 2.8
68 Reckitt Benckiser PLC, Laxman Narasimhan, Sep-2019 2.7
69 Kingfisher PLC (LSE:KGF), Thierry Garnier Sep-2019, 2.6
70 NatWest Group PLC, Alison Rose, Nov-2019 2.5
71 Ferguson, Kevin Murphy, Nov-2019, 2.5
72 BP Bernard Looney Feb-2020 2.3
73 Phoenix Group PLC, Andy Briggs Feb-2020 2.2
74 Auto Trader PLC, Nathan Coe Mar-2020 2.2
75 Mondi, Andrew King, Apr-2020 2.1
76 Land Securities, Mark Allan, Apr-2020 2.1
77 Sainsbury, Simon Roberts, Jun-2020 1.9
78 Imperial Brands, Stefan Bomhard, Jul-2020 1.9
79 Aviva PLC (LSE:AV.), Amanda Blanc, Jul-2020, 1.8
80 abrdn PLC Stephen Bird, Sep-2020, 1.7
81 IAG Luis Gallego Sep-2020 1.7
82 Persimmon, Dean Finch Sep-2020 1.6
83 Tesco, Ken Murphy Oct-2020 1.6
84 Pearson, Andy Bird Oct-2020 1.6
85 British Land, Simon Carter Nov-2020 1.5
86 Admiral Group, Milena Mondini de Focatiis, Dec-2020 1.4
87 Rio Tinto, Jakob Stausholm Jan-2021 1.4
88 Royal Mail PLC (LSE:RMG), Simon Thompson / Martin Seidenberg Jan-2021 1.3
89 Entain PLC (LSE:ENT), Jette Nygaard-Andersen Jan-2021 1.3
90 AVEVA, Peter Herweck May-2021 1.0
91 Smiths Group (LSE:SMIN), Paul Keel May-2021 1.0
92 Glencore PLC (LSE:GLEN), Gary Nagle Jul-2021 0.9
93 Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LSE:LLOY), Charlie Nun Aug-2021 0.7
94 Airtel Africa, Olesegun Ogunsanya Oct-2021 0.6
95 Barclays, C.S. Venkatakrishnan Nov-2021 0.5
96 Prudential, Mark FitzPatrick (interim) Mar-2022 0.1
97 Burberry, Jonathan Akeroyd Apr-2022 0.1
98Smith & Nephew, Deepak Nath Apr-2022 0.1
99 Anglo American, Duncan Wanblad Apr-2022 0.1
100 Taylor Wimpey, Jennie Daly Apr-2022 0.0
AVERAGE YEARS AS CEO: 5.7
Source: AJBell, company accounts data as of 9 May 2022.