• March 28, 2024

BAT tops Good Governance Report

 BAT tops Good Governance Report

The Institute of Directors’ (IoD) Good Governance Report, published this month, has placed British American Tobacco at the top of an index of UK-listed FTSE companies in respect of corporate governance performance.

“For us, high standards of corporate governance are a fundamental element that underpins the sustainable, long-term growth of our business,” said Simon Cleverly, BAT’s group head of corporate affairs, in commenting on the company’s top place. “We are very pleased to see this commitment being recognized in the IoD report.”

BAT said the IoD’s index combined measurable factors with the views of investors, business leaders and governance professionals.

‘The study looked at 34 factors across five areas of corporate governance: board effectiveness, audit and risk/external accountability, remuneration and reward, shareholder relations and stakeholder relations,’ BAT said in a note posted on its website. ‘The choice of factors is guided by the UK Corporate Governance Code and the Companies Act 2016.

‘Alongside the measurable factors, the IoD ran a survey that produced 1,977 ratings of companies on their corporate governance, from 744 individual respondents. The responses were drawn from members of the IoD, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England … [and] Wales, the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, FTSE 350 company secretaries and other governance and investment professionals.

BAT published on September 5 its Corporate Behaviour Sustainability Focus Report.

Meanwhile, according to a story by Sean Farrell for The Guardian on September 7, the IoD, in publishing its report, said that companies had to improve how they were run after a year in which excessive pay for bosses and a string of scandals had again battered the reputation of corporate Britain.

Farrell said that BAT’s top score on governance measures had offset a relatively low perception ranking of 42.