Andy Bond, ex chief executive at Asda will be kicking off the New Year as the new executive chairman of Poundland.

Mr Bond will be replacing Kevin O’Byrne, who resigned last week and will be taking up a chief finance officer role with supermarket giant Sainsbury’s.

For the last two years, Mr Bond has held the position of chief executive of general merchandise business Pepkor, who are owned by Steinhoff, the same parent company as Poundland.

Previous to Pepkor, Mr Bond was chief executive at Asda from 2005 – 2010 and directed negotiations for Steinhoff when the South African company started its acquisition bid for Poundland.

Meanwhile, at Pepkor, it was Mr Bond who was responsible for introducing its UK brands, including Guess How Much discount houseware stores and the Pep & Co low cost fashion chain, which opened 50 stores in its first year.

Bond commented that he will aim to make Poundland “the centre of all Pepkor operations in both the UK and Europe".