Hillsdown sets pace on governance code
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Your support makes all the difference.HILLSDOWN Holdings, the food manufacturer, has become one of the first large companies to ask its auditors to check its claim that it complies with best practice on corporate governance.
Its annual report includes a description of its corporate governance procedures and concludes: 'The board considers that Hillsdown has complied with all aspects of the code of best practice.'
Below the statement, the joint auditors Jayson Newman and KPMG Peat Marwick say they have reviewed the statement and say it 'appropriately reflects the company's compliance with the specified paragraphs of the code.'
The Cadbury guidelines on corporate governance recommend that auditors check companies' statements, but few companies have taken up the suggestion. David Newton, Hillsdown's chief executive, said the company was partly influenced by the fact that Hillsdown had previously had a poor reputation on corporate governance.
'It made us take the opportunity to say, whatever anyone thinks, we really are squeaky clean,' he said.
The accounts also reveal that Simon Moffat, who was replaced as finance director during the year, was paid between pounds 250,000 and pounds 300,000 compensation for loss of office. Mr Newton's salary, however, dropped from pounds 752,000 to pounds 412,000 as he returned from Canada - where he was paid on US scales - to become chief executive.
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