A top five shareholder in British American Tobacco has called for the cigarette group to move its primary listing to New York.

Rajiv Jain, founder of the $92 billion US-based investment firm GQG Partners, has urged bosses at the FTSE 100-listed owner of Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarettes to shift its listing from London, which dates back to 1912.

Jain told the Financial Times that the core ownership base of BAT had disappeared, the company’s business was centred in the US and there was a gap in valuation with the tobacco gian Philip Morris International, which is listed in the US, where GQG is a top-10 shareholder.

His intervention comes when increasing numbers of companies are considering the merits of New York over London