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Imperial Brands CEO Cooper To Step Down

By Dayeeta Das
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Imperial Brands CEO Cooper To Step Down

Imperial Brands Plc Chief executive officer Alison Cooper will step down once a replacement is found, the maker of Winston and Gauloises cigarettes announced on Thursday.

The departure of Cooper, who has led the company for nine years, comes days after it issued a full-year profit warning blaming the US regulatory crackdown on vaping.

Cooper is one of just five female CEOs among Britain's top 100 listed companies.

E-Cigarette Portfolio

In July the company announced that it would drop its 10% dividend growth target from next year to focus on developing its e-cigarette portfolio as traditional smoking wanes.

This added to investor woes as stocks such as Imperial have historically been sought after for their high earnings and dividend payments.

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While the search for a successor continues, Cooper will focus on driving the performance of the business, including the asset divestment programme, from which the company expects to realise proceeds of up to £2 billion ($2.46 billion) by May 2020, the company said in a statement.

Cooper's departure is the second high profile exit for the company this year. It announced in February that Chairman Mark Williamson would step down once a successor was found citing new British guidelines on the length of board chair tenures.

News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.

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