Former Premier Investments CEO Richard Murray has re-emerged four months after quitting Solomon Lew’s retailing empire, and has been appointed to run Metcash’s trade hardware chain, Total Tools.

Mr Murray’s exit from the billionaire’s retailing group in August surprised the market. He had been hired from JB Hi-Fi, where he was the chief executive, only two years earlier, and The Australian Financial Review reported at the time that he was unhappy at being excluded from talks about Mr Lew’s plan to carve up his operations.