Early this year I received a press release that said 1995, according to the Chinese calendar, is the Year of the Pig.
This was a good omen for the sender, a company involved in pipeline pigging.
Pigs have featured heavily this year for British Gas plc. A live pig and press accusations of piggish behavior enlivened the company's annual meeting May 31.
Last December, British Gas increased the salary of Chief Executive Cedric Brown to 475,000/year ($712,500), a 75% pay increase, soon after announcing a program to cut 25,000 jobs (OGJ, Dec. 12, 1994, p. 26).
In a public relations stunt, members of the GMB trade union, to which many British Gas workers belong, displayed a large pig at the entrance to the meeting hall as angry shareholders gathered for their annual briefing.
Union members claimed the pig's name was Cedric, and they fed it from a bucket labeled "The trough of privatization."
PRESS PUNS
Britain's daily newspapers, both serious and downmarket, could not resist the opportunity for puns.
"Which Cedric has his nose in the trough?" asked the Daily Mirror in huge letters under large side by side photographs of Brown and the pig.
"Snout you go," was the front page headline of the Sun newspaper, reporting how shareholders attending the meeting voted against reappointing the British Gas board of directors.
Even the more intellectual papers joined in: "Trough of despond for board as angry crowd gives Brown the thumbs down," said the Guardian. It ran a picture of the pig and two union chaperons.
As usual, the Financial Times was most restrained, but its headline told the whole story: "British Gas board bruised on pay but wins the day."
As Chairman Richard Giordano explained to about 4,500 gathered shareholders, voting on reelection of the board would include proxy votes of 213,00 shareholders owning more than half of the company's share capital.
"On Resolution 6, the reappointment of Cedric Brown," said Giordano, "proxies representing more than 2 billion shares are in favor of his reappointment, and only 51 million are against. More than 97% are for the resolution.
OFGAS DIVERSION
U.K. gas industry regulator Office of Gas Supply (Ofgas), normally a headache for British Gas as the company's former monopoly is dismantled, inadvertently helped divert some media criticism of British Gas that day, however.
The Guardian revealed that Ofgas Director General Clare Spottiswoode had asked for her own pay hike, a 65% increase from her current 70,000 ($105,000) salary.
"They had a pig called Cedric at the British Gas AGM," thundered the Sun. "Pity they didn't have one called Clare."
Amid the furor, Giordano sought to reassure the meeting about staff cuts: "We have not fired anyone; 12,000 workers have elected to take our voluntary redundancy package."
If I were in Giordano's shoes, that number of people leaving the company, no matter how enticing the payoff package, would have me worried. I would be concerned that many talented workers-not just deadweights-were among the exodus.
Copyright 1995 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
