Clare brings a little more calm to Dixons

Business Profile: Chief executive of electrical chain aims for more relaxed environment in post-Kalms era

John Clare, the chief executive of Dixons, is not having one of his better days. It is the afternoon of Dixons results announcement and Britain's biggest electrical retailer has issued a profits warning which has forced the shares down 21 per cent.

It is hardly the start he would have wanted in the "post-Kalms" era. Sir Stanley Kalms, the 70-year-old retail veteran who built up Dixons from a single store, only retired in September. The impression is that the great man is no sooner out the door than things go pear-shaped.

A mighty sigh emerges from Mr Clare's big frame as he runs a hand through his snow white hair. He says: "There's a need to run any business through good times and bad. Any chief executive's career is usually made up of a mixture of the two. Actually I get a kick out of the challenge. That's the job."

It clearly riles him, though, that people still go on about Sir Stanley. "Stanley was a tremendous guy and a great operator. And he took quite a high public profile because that was what he wanted to do. But he hasn't been running the business for a long time. I've been chief executive for 10 years."

Does he not still ring up every day, then? "No. I do miss the daily conversation on the telephone. I wondered if it would stop. But it did. He is not interfering and has genuinely stepped back. In fact he has stepped back in a way I didn't expect before."

Mr Clare denies that a shadow has been lifted from him? "It's you guys [in the media] who think there was some kind of shadow hanging over me. I haven't felt that at all."

There are some aspects of Sir Stanley's tenure about which Mr Clare is reluctant to speak. One is his performance at his final annual meeting when Sir Stanley behaved in a bullying, bad-tempered manner, belittling some shareholders who had the temerity to ask questions. Asked what he thought of it, Mr Clare says: "I don't think it's my position with you – and certainly not on the record – to say too much about these things."

Did he find it embarrassing? "Not that I want you to say in the newspaper. But I do think the handling of the last couple of AGMs was a little bit overly aggressive," he says.

Mr Clare then goes on to plead Sir Stanley's case. "He has a style which can be perceived to be very aggressive. When you get to know him you know that it isn't. He's dry, he's cynical and he tends to enjoy winding people up. In the early days that was not very easy to get used to. But once you do you actually start to accept it and respect it. I'm sure with the AGM that he realised he'd overdone it and reined back a bit."

It clearly rankles with Mr Clare that he doesn't get quite the credit he deserves as the chief executive of a FTSE 100 company as the Kalms factor has been so powerful. But there have been times when he has been grateful for others to take the limelight. "Back in 1989 after I had just joined the group board Kingfisher bid for Dixons. The publicity in hostile bids can sometimes be quite difficult to cope with. And I had two young children at school. They both took quite a bit of flak, not only from their schoolmates, but from some of the staff because what was being said about Dixons. That's a situation where you can be grateful that you are below the threshold of the attacks. If you were Stanley Kalms in that situation, it would be different."

Mr Clare, 51, has made changes that would not have been part of the Kalms era. Nine months ago he introduced a dress-down policy at Dixons' Hemel Hempstead head office. Mr Clare sticks to the code and turns up in the executive uniform of chinos and polo shirts.

He is also prepared to take to the microphone on the Karaoke machine at Dixons' sales manager of the year jamborees. "He's not the worst singer I've ever heard," one Dixons staffer says. It is hard to imagine Sir Stanley doing the same thing, though apparently he did. Once. "He sang 'My Way'," the Dixons staffer says. "It brought tears to the eyes."

Mr Clare does seem to be trying to "modernise" the Dixons culture, which is known to be fantastically aggressive. "He's challenging but not in a way that feels threatening," one former employee says of Mr Clare's management style.

He has recently introduced a Statement of Principles, which includes five mantras. They include "operating with honesty and integrity" and "respecting your colleagues". It all sounds a bit namby-pamby for a muscular company such as Dixons but Mr Clare clearly believes it is time to move on.

However, Darty, the French electricals division being off-loaded by arch-rival Kingfisher, may not be part of the post-Kalms era at Dixons. The company said last week that it planned to concentrate on its existing UK and European interests. But Mr Clare is careful not to rule anything out. He says he has only binned the idea as the business is forecasting a weaker period of consumer spending. "Who knows a demerged Kingfisher electricals may still be around if we are wrong," he says.

Instead Dixons will work on opening PC City stores in France and Spain. There are only a handful so far. But if successful he predicts a roll-out to 30 in both markets "pretty quickly".

Mr Clare is also more upbeat than many City analysts about the product cycle. "You can get a 42-inch plasma-screen TV for under £3,000 now and they are amazing. I've got one. I've also got an LCD portable TV. This is a market that has been in the doldrums for some time. But these things are fantastic and sexy. Phenomenal. They are £600 but by next Christmas they will probably be half that."

Not that Mr Clare is a gadget freak. "I usually buy silly experimental things at Christmas and then end up throwing them away."

Most of his favourite gadgets seem to have something to do with food, which he confesses to liking a lot. "I cook a lot and so I bought one of those George Foreman grills. I also bought a pizza oven but only used it once after a I burned them because I'd used a pre-cooked base."

He regrets not playing as much sport as he used to. "I used to play a lot of cricket, squash and football. And a lot of table tennis. My mother was a national player and I played at county standard."

As for how long he stays at Dixons he says: "This is a market that gets to you. It's a very dynamic business. I'll either retire or they'll have to take me out in a box."

Position: Chief executive, Dixons Group

Age: 51

Pay: £548,000 last year, including bonuses

Career history: Educated at Edinburgh University. Joined Dixons as marketing director in 1986 after stints at Ladbroke and Mars. Promoted to managing director in 1987 and to the main board in 1988. Became chief executive in 1992.

At home: Married with two sons and keeps a boat on the Thames near his home in Maidenhead.