INVESTORS AND analysts have welcomed the freshening of the board of British Sky Broadcasting, which has been subject to investor pressure to replace long-serving directors and people linked to shareholder News Corp.

However they pointed out that yesterday’s announcement proposing Martin Gilbert and Matthieu Pigasse as non-executive directors did not address the continuing chairmanship of James Murdoch, the other issue that concerns shareholders.

Mr Gilbert is a founder shareholder and chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management as well as chairman of FirstGroup, the bus and train operator.

A person close to him said he had taken on the job “to ensure minority shareholders are looked after”.

Mr Pigasse is the chief executive of Lazard France and vice-chairman of Lazard Europe as well as the co-controlling shareholder of Le Monde, the French newspaper.

They will be appointed by the board in the days following BSkyB’s annual meeting on November 29th, because it was too late to have their appointments to replace Allan Leighton and David Evans formally added to the resolutions, a spokesman said.

Mr Leighton is former chief executive of Asda and chairman of Royal Mail. Mr Evans was formerly president of Crown Media in the US.

BSkyB, which News Corp failed to take private after a year-long regulatory struggle because of the fallout from the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, announced this year that it would begin refreshing its board.

Claire Enders, a leading British analyst, said getting Mr Gilbert was a “coup” for BSkyB as he has a reputation for probity.

“He has a global view and is feisty in defence of shareholder interests,” she said.

Another analyst described the appointments as “a step in the right direction”. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011)