Retiring BAT boss slams NAPF

By NICK GOODWAY FOR MAILONLINE
Updated:

 

MARTIN Broughton today used his swan song as chairman of tobacco giant BAT to launch an attack on the National Association of Pension Funds' recent policy document on corporate governance.

Addressing his final BAT annual general meeting, he said: 'Just as a new combined code on corporate governance is starting to bed in, the NAPF - which fully signed up to it - has published a 72-page corporate governance policy that takes us off down the plethora path again.'

'The NAPF says that its document would add only minimal changes beyond the code. We find this astonishing. Why would you need 72 pages to cover minimal further requirements? Anyway, daft as some of these further requirements are, that's not the point - the point is the new combined code should be given a chance to work.'

Broughton added: 'The NAPF would do itself and the whole investment community a great service by withdrawing its policy and allowing the new and agreed combined code a proper chance to do just that.'

Broughton, who will become chairman of British Airways later this year, said that he expected BAT to show growth this year but warned that it could be hit by the impact of foreign exchange movements.

He highlighted Canada as a country where 'market factors' were likely to have an impact on profitability.

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