(^) The Mail on Sunday September 1 • 2019
Euro rivals are
‘weaponising’
Brexit, says CBI
Major firms
face investor
revolt over
bosses’ pay
A STRING of major listed firms
are braced for investor revolts
over executive pay this week.
Pub group Greene King,
Carpetright, Dixons Carphone and
property firm Berkeley Group are
all in the firing line ahead of their
annual shareholder meetings.
Influential shareholder advisory
group ISS has told investors in
Greene King – Britain’s largest
pub and brewer – to vote against
an £850,000 ‘golden goodbye’
payment to departing chief
executive Rooney Anand at its
annual meeting on Friday.
Greene King, which recently
agreed its sale to Hong Kong
investor CK Asset Holdings, hit
back, saying it was ‘disappointed’
by ISS’s criticism. The firm added
that the payment was ‘integral to
the smooth transition and of
significant value’ to shareholders.
ISS has also told shareholders to
vote against a new executive pay
policy at Carpetright’s annual
meeting on Thursday. The adviser
fears the ‘complex arrangement’
could lead to executives being
given excessive bonuses.
The firm said bosses’ pay has
fallen this year and larger
investors are supportive.
Berkeley will also face pressure
at its annual meeting on Friday.
ISS and another influential
adviser, Glass Lewis, said
investors should vote down the
executive pay plan due to its long-
term bonus scheme.
Berkeley has argued that big
shareholders back the change, and
said it introduced tougher new
performance conditions.
Dixons Carphone’s annual
meeting is also this week, with
directors facing a revolt over a
£ 2 .34 million share payment made
to chief executive Alex Baldock
earlier this year. This firm argues
this payment is appropriate.
FRENCH and German manufac-
turers are ‘weaponising’ Brexit to
exploit their UK rivals, the head of
Britain’s most influential business
lobby has warned.
Carolyn Fairbairn, head of the
CBI, said numerous businesses had
told her that European rivals were
playing on fear to ‘go after their
customers’.
‘Those competitors from France
and Germany are circling,’ she told
The Mail on Sunday. ‘Contracts are
already being lost to competitors
weaponising uncertainty against
UK rivals.
‘What we are starting to see unfor-
tunately, in the renewal of con-
tracts, is that French and German
companies are already saying to
customers in Europe, “Do you want
to risk disruption? Do you want to
take the risk? Why don’t you renew
your contract with us rather than
with a UK company?” ’
Fairbairn added: ‘Several compa-
nies have told me that they have
already lost market share to this,
that they were fighting for every
percentage point and it is so diffi-
cult to claw that back. Getting those
customers back is going to take
years to do.’
Last week, international business
news service Bloomberg reported
that workers at Peugeot plants in
France are hoping Brexit could
mean that production of Vauxhall
vehicles currently made in Elles-
mere Port near Liverpool may be
switched to mainland Europe.
PSA, the French company that
owns Peugeot and Vauxhall, is cur-
rently planning to split the manu-
facturing of its new Vauxhall Astra
model between Ellesmere Port and
a site in Germany.
But Bloomberg said workers at
Peugeot sites in France – at Sochaux
and Mulhouse – believe they can
win UK business in the event of a
‘hard Brexit’.
Fairbairn said other manufactur-
ers are privately reporting similar
challenges.
The CBI has faced criticism from
pro-Brexit politicians for allegedly
being too negative, but Fairbairn
said that if the Government can
strike a deal with the EU before the
end of October it would ‘breathe
life’ into the domestic economy.
‘Leaving the EU with a deal will
support economic growth and bring
oxygen flooding back into the
domestic opportunities that have
been ignored,’ she said.
Fairbairn said getting a deal
would lead to the growth needed in
order to pay for full-fibre broad-
band, to address our skills gap and
to allow investment in education
for the next generation.
Boris Johnson’s advisers are
understood to have been urging
business leaders to refrain from
making negative remarks about a
No Deal exit on October 31. But
Fairbairn added ominously: ‘With-
out a deal, the economy will suffer
very badly.’
A PROPERTY investment
company with links to one of
America’s most aggressive
hedge funds and a vehicle run
by the son of one Britain’s
best known developers have
approached Capital &
Counties about buying its
Earls Court Exhibition Centre
development site.
City sources said Hayrish –
which works with Paul
Singer’s Elliott Management
Corporation – and Delancey,
controlled by Jamie Ritblat,
son of Sir John Ritblat, have
both submitted proposals to
buy the West London site.
Other parties that have
expressed an interest include
CK Asset Holdings – which is
ultimately controlled by Li-Ka
shing, Asia’s richest man –
and Canary Wharf Group.
Capital & Counties, the FTSE
250-listed property group, has
seen the value of its Earls
Court scheme collapse over
the past five years amid
declining demand for luxury
property and opposition from
residents of nearby estates.
Reports suggest the site’s
value fell 11.5 per cent in the
six months to the end of June
to £599 million.
Capital & Counties plans to
proceed with a demerger of
the company into two separate
listed businesses – Covent
Garden and Earls Court.
However, some sources said
this was not the best outcome
for Capital & Counties but the
group had decided to pursue
this route because its advisers
at NM Rothschild had
persuaded the board to follow
the demerger option.
Capital & Counties, Elliott
Management Corporation and
Delancey declined to
comment. Hayrish did not
return calls for comment.
Sauces keep bean counters happy at Heinz
Big players
line up to buy
£600m site at
Earls Court
By Ben Harrington
By William Turvill
IT WAS a case of Beanz
Meanz Profits at the Brit-
ish arm of US food giant
Kraft Heinz, as the food
producer saw sales jump
5 per cent last year.
Accounts just filed for
HJ Heinz Foods UK show
that the supermarket sup-
plier, which also owns HP
Sauce, Daddies and Lea &
Perrins, increased turno-
ver from £716 million to
£751 million in the year to
December 29, 2018, while
pre-tax profits rose 8 per
cent from £119.9 million
to £129.4 million.
Directors pointed to
‘increased consumption
in our sauces portfolio’.
As well as Heinz tomato
ketchup, the firm makes
salad cream, mayonnaise
and Saucy Sauce, a mix of
ketchup and mayonnaise.
It recently brought to
the UK Bull’s Eye barbe-
cue sauce and its no-
added-sugar ketchup.
Heinz added: ‘Further
success was attributable
to growth of 18.7 per cent
of discount channels
driven by channel growth
and new listings’ – which
is understood to mean
Heinz selling its branded
products through the dis-
count supermarkets, as
well as making own-label
varieties of products such
as soup and baked beans.
Heinz has 2,100 staff in
the UK and Ireland. Its
site in Wigan is Europe’s
largest food factory, pro-
ducing more than a billion
cans every year.
By Sarah Bridge
By William Turvill
94 FINANCIAL
Taking the Mickey...men called Michael
outnumber women chairing FTSE firms
THERE are more men called
Michael chairing Britain’s largest
companies than there are women
in similar posts, an analysis by The
Mail on Sunday has found.
Just five companies in the
FTSE 100 have female chairs,
compared with seven whose
boards are run by men named
Michael, Mike or Micky.
The fact that just six of the
FTSE 100 have female chief exec-
utives has been widely bemoaned.
But our research shows there are
even fewer women chairing such
businesses.
Rachel Reeves, the chair of Par-
liament’s Business Select Com-
mittee, said: ‘These findings are
deeply depressing but hardly
come as a surprise given the
ingrained culture of inequality at
too many of our leading compa-
nies. It is time they joined the 21st
Century and tackled the woeful
under-representation of women.
‘A firm’s culture is driven from
the top. More female chairs would
be an important catalyst to ensur-
ing a greater number of female
CEOs and increased diversity at
all levels.’
Three FTSE 100 boards are
chaired by men named Michael
- Michael Dobson of asset man-
a g e m e n t g i a n t S c h r o d e r s ;
Michael McLintock of Associ-
ated British Foods; and Michael
Roney of retailer Next. Three
chairs are known as Mike – Mike
Biggs of insurer Direct Line;
Mike Evans of food delivery firm
Just Eat; and Mike Rogers of
data giant Experian.
The seventh Michael is Micky
Arison, the US-based chairman of
global cruise ship giant Carnival.
The women chairing FTSE 100
boards are Anita Frew of chemi-
cals firm Croda; Annette Court of
insurer Admiral; Cressida Hogg
of property investor Land Securi-
ties; Deanna Oppenheimer of
investment supermarket Har-
greaves Lansdown; and Fiona
McBain of the Scottish Mortgage
Investment Trust.
T h e H a m p t o n - A l e x a n d e r
Review, set up to promote gen-
der diversity and led by Glaxo-
S m i t h K l i n e ’s c h a i r m a n S i rPhilip Hampton, is pushing com-
panies in the FTSE 100 and
FTSE 250 to have at least a third
of board positions held by
women by next year.
Influential lobby group the 30%
Club, founded by financier Dame
Helena Morrissey, has also been
campaigning for more gender
diversity in boardrooms.
A recent Chartered Institute of
Personnel and Development
report found there are only six
female CEOs at FTSE 100 firms- while there are seven Stephens,
Stevens or Steves.
Dame Helena said: ‘We have so
much work to do if we want to aim
for gender balance at the top of
our companies.’
By William Turvill
ONE of the ‘seven Michaels’ chairing
FTSE 100 firms is Micky Arison, left, the
billionaire chairman of cruise ship giant
Carnival. Arison, who also owns
basketball team Miami Heat, has an
unconventional deal where he leases his
private jet to the company. As part of the
deal, one company linked to Arison leases
the plane to Carnival for $4,500 an hour
plus taxes, and another pays Carnival to
manage it for him. The FTSE 100 firm
spent $789,000 in 2018 under the deal.BOSS’S Micky MOuSe jet deal
V1Hamish McRae is away