British American Tobacco COO Nicandro Durante To Succeed Paul Adams As Chief Executive

Source from:  RTTNews 06/25/2010

British American Tobacco Plc said Thursday that its Chief Operating Officer Nicandro Durante will become the Chief Executive of the company following the retirement of Paul Adams at the end of February 2011. Accordingly, Durante will become chief executive designate starting September. Durante, who joined British American Tobacco in 1981, occupied major positions including Director, Africa and Middle East, President of Souza Cruz and other senior management roles in Brazil, the UK and Hong Kong. In a statement, Richard Burrows, chairman said, "Paul Adams is an outstandingly successful Chief Executive and the Group's results under his leadership really do speak for themselves -- The Board is naturally delighted to have been able to choose such a strong and experienced internal candidate as Chief Executive and I am confident that Nicandro will become a worthy successor to Paul." Nicandro Durante has been chief operating officer of British American Tobacco and its Kenyan subsidiary since beginning of 2008. Durante serves as a director of America-Pacific at British American Tobacco Plc and British American Tobacco Kenya Ltd. He served as Regional Director of Bat Group in Africa and The Middle East of Companhia Souza Cruz SA since March 2006. The UK-based tobacco company noted that Durante will be succeeded by John Daly in his current role as COO effective September 1. Also, Ben Stevens, Finance Director, will take charge of the additional role of chief information officer from September 1. John Daly joined the company in 1994 and has been the Director, Asia Pacific since 2004. He occupied various key roles in Europe and the Far East and was appointed Area Director for the Middle East and North Africa in 2001. Further, the company stated that John Daly will be succeeded as Regional Director, Asia Pacific by David Fell, who will move from his current role as Director, Eastern Europe. Fell will be succeeded by Des Naughton, currently Regional Head of Marketing, Africa and Middle East. British American Tobacco has appointed Kieran Poynter as a non-executive director with effect from July 1. Poynter was formerly chairman and senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. For fiscal 2009, British American Tobacco had posted earnings attributable to shareholders of GBP 2.71 billion or 136.3 pence per share, up from GBP 2.46 billion or 122.5 pence per share a year earlier. The company's full year revenues were GBP 14.21 billion, up 17%, compared to GBP 12.12 billion in the prior year. BATS.L is currently trading at 2,131 pence, down 22 pence or 1.02%, on a volume of 504 thousand shares. In the past 52 weeks, the shares have been trading in a range of 1,664 pence-2,335.5 pence on the LSE. Enditem