The stockholders’ meeting of British American Tobacco Ukraine appointed Dean Gilfilan the company’s new CEO. Gilfilan has been with BAT since 1999 and worked as marketing director for BAT Iran for the past few years.
He is taking up from John Richardson who has been appointed to BAT’s head office in London. BAT was the first foreign investor to enter the Ukrainian tobacco industry where its plant in Priluki holds the third position. Last year, BAT-Priluki’s position was shattered notably. The company lost 6.6 per cent of its yearly output and made 22.6 billion cigarettes in 2005, reducing its market share to 18.7 from 22.1 per cent in the previous year. Experts gave a number of reasons for that, particularly that BAT had been in the process of upgrading its facility for the previous two years. However, statistics recently issued for the first eight months of the year 2006 indicate that BAT is still far from recovering its past pace, having registered a 20 per cent decline in cigarette output year on year. (vt)