Af­ter 15 years at the helm of the West In­di­an To­bac­co Co Ltd, An­tho­ny E Phillip has an­nounced that he will be re­sign­ing as Wit­co’s chair­man fol­low­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s an­nu­al meet­ing next month.

“At the close of the April 2022 an­nu­al meet­ing of share­hold­ers, I re­tire from the board of di­rec­tors. I wish to thank the board of di­rec­tors, man­age­ment, staff and you the share­hold­ers for your con­fi­dence in my stew­ard­ship of the board over the last 15 years and wish West In­di­an To­bac­co con­tin­ued suc­cess,” Phillip an­nounced in the chair­man’s state­ment in the com­pa­ny’s an­nu­al re­port for 2021.

Wit­co’s 117th an­nu­al meet­ing is card­ed to be held in a vir­tu­al for­mat via an on­line live we­b­cast from the board­room at the com­pa­ny’s com­pound in Champs Fleurs on April 7.

“Mr An­tho­ny E Phillip re­tires from the Board of Di­rec­tors of Wit­co at the close of the An­nu­al Meet­ing of Share­hold­ers on April 7, 2022, af­ter a stel­lar tour of du­ty in­clud­ing his ser­vice in the man­u­fac­tur­ing and com­mer­cial ar­eas of the busi­ness, lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly,” the com­pa­ny stat­ed in a trib­ute.

Phillip will re­tire from the board in ac­cor­dance with para­graph 4.7:2(g) of Wit­co’s bye-law num­ber 1 and will not of­fer him­self for re-elec­tion.

In 1984, Phillip was ap­point­ed Wit­co’s pro­duc­tion man­ag­er/di­rec­tor and even­tu­al­ly suc­ceed­ed Au­d­ley L Walk­er as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor in 1998.

Fol­low­ing his re­tire­ment in 2006, Phillip be­came chair­man of the board in 2007.

“If there was a blue­print of how to nav­i­gate a com­pa­ny in the high­ly spe­cialised to­bac­co in­dus­try in T&T, An­tho­ny Phillip would cer­tain­ly be list­ed as the au­thor,” the com­pa­ny stat­ed.

“His most mem­o­rable achieve­ment was co­or­di­nat­ing the ramp­ing up of the fac­to­ry, in 2005, specif­i­cal­ly, im­prove­ments in ma­chine ef­fi­cien­cies, sup­ply chain re­li­a­bil­i­ty and prod­uct qual­i­ty, in or­der to qual­i­fy for se­lec­tion as con­tract man­u­fac­tur­ers to our British Amer­i­can To­bac­co (Cari­com)as­so­ciates,” it stat­ed.

Wit­co said Phillip’s lega­cy has “un­doubt­ed­ly con­tributed to build­ing share­hold­ers’ eq­ui­ty and to the cor­po­rate foot­print of the com­pa­ny in T&T and through­out the re­gion.”

Al­so re­sign­ing from the board next month in ac­cor­dance with para­graph 4.7:2(g) of Wit­co’s bye-law num­ber 1 is Ran­jit Jee­wan, one of the board’s longest serv­ing mem­bers.

Phillip thanked Jee­wan for his sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the board and the com­pa­ny over the last 36 years.

Jee­wan was ap­point­ed a di­rec­tor in No­vem­ber 1986 and has been a mem­ber of the Board’s Au­dit Com­mit­tee since 1990.

He has worked in the to­bac­co in­dus­try since 1968 when he joined Wit­co from its then firm of au­di­tors, Fitz­patrick Gra­ham & Com­pa­ny as a se­nior clerk in the fi­nance de­part­ment.

“Mr Jee­wan will be re­mem­bered at West In­di­an To­bac­co for suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ing three de­val­u­a­tions with the com­pa­ny be­ing ad­e­quate­ly hedged to avoid im­me­di­ate pric­ing bur­dens on con­sumers and for the amal­ga­ma­tion and mod­erni­sa­tion of the com­pa­ny’s two pen­sion plans,” Wit­co stat­ed.

Last month, Wit­co an­nounced that In­grid L A Lash­ley had been ap­point­ed its deputy chair­man.

That ap­point­ment took ef­fect from the Feb­ru­ary 1.

“Ms Lash­ley is an ac­coun­tant with over thir­ty years ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in fi­nance, bank­ing and ac­count­ing. Ms Lash­ley is a gov­er­nance pro­fes­sion­al who is an in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tor and is al­so the chair­man of the com­pa­ny’s au­dit com­mit­tee,” it stat­ed.

An­drea Mar­ti­ni and John De Sil­va have of­fered them­selves for elec­tion to the Wit­co board, the com­pa­ny stat­ed.

Mar­ti­ni is a con­sul­tant in busi­ness strat­e­gy, mar­ket­ing and trans­for­ma­tion who has op­er­at­ed glob­al­ly in a num­ber of Fast Mov­ing Con­sumer Goods (FM­CG) com­pa­nies over the last 28 years.

While De Sil­va is cur­rent­ly the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Las­co Dis­trib­u­tors Ltd.

The Wit­co board cur­rent­ly com­pris­es nine di­rec­tors.

Of those nine di­rec­tors, sev­en are non-ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tors and of those sev­en, four are in­de­pen­dent di­rec­tors.

Longer cig­a­rettes

com­ing

An­oth­er ma­jor change planned by Wit­co this year is that some smok­ers will be get­ting longer cig­a­rettes for the same price.

“De­spite the many chal­lenges in the year, there were still some bright spots. Broad­way con­tin­ued an up­ward tra­jec­to­ry, show­ing re­silience through­out the cur­rent cli­mate in the mar­ket. De­spite the state of emer­gency and con­tin­ued eco­nom­ic down­turn, Broad­way mi­grat­ed to Lucky Strike White and achieved five per cent growth ver­sus the pre­vi­ous year,” Wit­co stat­ed.

“This brand re­mains con­sis­tent as it con­tin­ues to de­liv­er val­ue to con­sumers through an at­trac­tive of­fer and price. In 2022, this seg­ment can look for­ward to more val­ue as it mi­grates to a king­sized of­fer pro­vid­ing more to con­sumers at the same price,” it stat­ed.

Mt d’or’s mi­gra­tion to Roth­mans in 2020 con­tin­ued in­to 2021 with pos­i­tive feed­back from cus­tomers and con­sumers, Wit­co stat­ed.

“This low-price seg­ment, sim­i­lar to Broad­way, will be mov­ing to a king-sized of­fer. In 2022, this brand is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue be­ing a key strate­gic growth dri­ver for the port­fo­lio and con­tin­ues to be one of the mar­ket lead­ers,” it stat­ed.

“The pre­mi­um price seg­ment was most af­fect­ed by the on­set of the pan­dem­ic with the clo­sure of en­ter­tain­ment chan­nels for most of 2021. De­spite this hin­drance, we added a 10’s for­mat to the Dun­hill cap­sule fam­i­ly which con­tin­ues to grow month on month. Con­sumers are en­joy­ing the cap­sule of­fer at a com­pet­i­tive price of $20,” it stat­ed.

“Al­so per­form­ing well are Dun­hill dou­ble cap­sules which has grown five per cent ver­sus last year and which con­tin­ues to boost the brand eq­ui­ty of the Dun­hill fam­i­ly. As re­stric­tions ease in 2022, we ex­pect a pos­i­tive in­crease in sales and mar­ket share for this brand fam­i­ly. Roth­mans White was launched in the lat­ter part of 2021. This ul­tra-low-price of­fer was launched to give con­sumers ad­di­tion­al choice at an af­ford­able price point based on the cur­rent eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion,” Wit­co stat­ed.

Wit­co said Roth­mans White con­tin­ues to grow month on month and is an­tic­i­pat­ed to in­creased mar­ket share in 2022.

“The year, 2021, was a year of re­ju­ve­na­tion for du Mau­ri­er. This fol­lowed ex­ten­sive re­search in the pre­vi­ous years which high­light­ed the need for change. Thus, du Mau­ri­er start­ed its mi­gra­tion to Lucky Strike Red,” it stat­ed.

“This change was met with pos­i­tive feed­back as loy­al con­sumers en­joyed the new look of the pack. Even though suf­fer­ing from down­trad­ing with­in the mar­ket, this brand fam­i­ly re­mains re­silient. 2022 will present a very ex­cit­ing prospect for loy­al con­sumers with the plans that will be ex­e­cut­ed,” Wit­co stat­ed.

$85 mil­lion in­vest­ment

in in­fra­struc­ture

De­spite a chal­leng­ing two years caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Wit­co last week an­nounced that it in­vest­ed $85 mil­lion in equip­ment and pack­age re­mod­el­ling.

Speak­ing at the fac­to­ry re-com­mis­sion­ing and rib­bon cut­ting Wit­co’s man­ag­ing di­rec­tor, Lau­rent Mef­fre, said this am­bi­tious pro­gramme is a clear demon­stra­tion of its com­mit­ment to the re­cov­ery and growth of T&T.

“Our new cor­po­rate tagline is ‘A Bet­ter To­mor­row’ and we in­tend to be a pos­i­tive con­trib­u­tor to this coun­try’s, and this re­gion’s bet­ter to­mor­row.

“As a rev­enue gen­er­a­tor, a net earn­er of forex, and a re­spon­si­ble em­ploy­er and cor­po­rate cit­i­zen with a fo­cus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, we do care about the fu­ture of this coun­try and its re­vival. As we en­ter the en­dem­ic stage of the pan­dem­ic, we see a promis­ing fu­ture ahead,” Mef­fre said.