Hampton Rules Himself out of BT Succession

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PHILIP Hampton, BT's finance director, hailed by the City as a hero for last week's pounds 5.9bn rights issue, has ruled himself out as a successor to Sir Peter Bonfield, the outgoing chief executive of the group.

Sir Peter has signed a contract, running until the end of next year, to be chief executive of BT Future, the group that will remain when the troubled telecoms giant demerges its mobile phone business, BT Wireless, and offloads Yell.

Under the deal, Sir Peter will get a terminal bonus of pounds 820,000 at the end of the contract. This has been greeted with protests by some BT shareholders, who want tough performance targets put in the contract before …