Special Report: Retail drive

Wesfarmers is yet to officially buy Coles, but integrating the business is already under way.

An innovative takeover sweetener for Coles Group Ltd shareholders became all the more important last week when an independent expert's report revealed Wesfarmers Ltd would effectively secure the retailer on the cheap.

Wesfarmers CEO Richard Goyder has great admiration for retailing executives such as Archie Norman, who was largely responsible for turning around the fortunes of UK supermarket group, Asda, before its sale to American retail giant Wal-Mart in 1999.

When Coles CEO John Fletcher famously told the media that he had barely been in a supermarket for 25 years, it passed largely unnoticed that this could be a problem as he took the helm of Melbourne-based retailers Coles Myer Ltd, as it was then known.