Associated British Foods plc (ABF) Q2 2023 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Thank you all very much for joining us in person today and thank you for those of you who are online. Before I get into the results presentations, I have a few comments to make about my learned friends on the right. I think all of you know that today is John's last time presenting ABF results. He was appointed our finance director on the 4th of May 1999. Just a week short of 24 years ago, when my daughter, who's just graduated from university last summer, was six months away from being born. We've established that he's been around for a long time. The big question is, has he been any good? And we've been doing a bit of internal research. This isn't audited, I warn you. We've had a look at the 35 survivors in the FTSE, of the companies in the FTSE 100 who existed when John, who were in the FTSE 100 when John started up as finance director. the first point to make, and it's kind of important in a family company, especially when I'm family, is that we're still alive. Two-thirds of the constituents aren't there anymore. We had a bit of a fright during COVID, perhaps, but other than that, and probably especially during that, John, thank you very much. Here are the total shareholder returns for the best of those 35 survivors. And here are the companies. Here are the number of finance directors that each of them has had during the period. So if we divide total returns by total finance directors to get total shareholder return per finance director over the period, And I think we've established that John has not only been good, he's been the best. I've spoken several times over the last, since John announced that he wanted to step back, about John's fine judgment around capital allocation and the capital disciplines he's embedded in our processes and in our culture. They're w...