It wasn’t all sweetness and light at the Morrisons annual meeting.

Chairman Sir Ian Gibson dealt deftly with a few disgruntled shareholders. They were unhappy about the pay-off to previous boss Marc Bolland who left to run Marks & Spencer, a bigger pay package for finance director Richard Pennycook, and the group’s share buy-back policy.

One shareholder asked why Mr Bolland had received a £280,000 pay-off when he had resigned. Sir Ian said he received only the cash to which he was legally entitled Asked why Mr Pennycook had had his remuneration package enhanced to £1.2 million, the chairman admitted it was a sweetener to keep him at Morrisons after he missed out on the top job following Mr Bolland’s departure.

Sir Ian said: “It was not a consolation prize. We had lost a chief executive and our share price fell by more than ten per cent on the day Marc Bolland announced his intention to leave. The effect of losing the chief financial officer as well would have been extremely serious.

“The board was meeting on a more than weekly basis at this time rather than monthly and believed it was in the best interests of shareholders and the company to ensure that we retained Richard’s services, rather than see him go elsewhere.

“I believe that in Dalton Philips and Richard Pennycook, Morrisons has the strongest retail executive team in the country.”

In May Mr Pennycook, 47, was named the UK’s best finance director, clinching the FTSE 100 FD of the Year title in the FD excellence awards. Sir Ian said the policy of buying back £1 billion of Morrisons shares over the next two years was aimed at reducing the number and boosting the value of remaining shares.