Robert Swannell may know Stuart Rose, but his chairmanship is likely to be very different

I don’t know Robert Swannell, but I know of him and he seems to be a very conventional choice for the Marks & Spencer chairmanship, which is exactly what the company’s shareholders will be looking for. Stuart Rose’s elevation to the joint role of chairman and chief executive antagonised shareholders and he never quite justified his claim that it was a necessary move for the market conditions.

Swannell is likely to be a much more traditional chairman - I can’t see him wheeling a rail of clothes onto the stage at a results day presentation - but he has a strong City pedigree and rightly or wrongly, his background as a leading investment banker will is likely to give investors a lot more confidence in the company’s direction. If he gets it right, there could be a step change in M&S’s relationship with the Square Mile.

He’s certainly done well as HMV chairman, overseeing the company’s reinvention and crucially persuading highly rated chief executive Simon Fox to stay when he was being wooed by ITV. He has enough experience in retail deals and non-deals - notably advising M&S on defending the approach from Sir Philip Green - to claim to know the sector, but is first and foremost a City man and that is what is needed at this point in time.

So a good appointment, but don’t expect as many fireworks as under Rose.