The replacement of Tobía Martínez as CEO of Cellnex is not being an orderly process as expected when the change was announced a few weeks ago. This morning the main shareholder of the company, the TCI fund, has insisted in an email sent to the Bloomberg agency that the change of Bertrand Kan as president is insufficient since he remains as a director with the right to vote. On Monday, Cellnex announced the change in the presidency. Only a few days before, on Thursday, the TCI shareholder demanded the departure of the president and the appointment of a new director.
TCI partner Jonathan Amouyal has expressed in an email that “it is very unusual for a former president to remain a member of the council after having been asked to leave.” In the investor’s opinion, it is necessary for Cellnex to focus “urgently” on the search for a new CEO, since the current top executive of the company, Tobías Martínez, will leave office on July 3, reports Europa Press.
Cellnex’s board of directors agreed on Monday to appoint Anne Bouverot as non-executive president of the company, replacing Kan. Kan stepped down as chairman of the board of directors after two years in charge of it, although he maintained his status as independent director.
Bouverot has been an independent director of Cellnex since May 2018 and is a member of the Audit and Risk Management Committee (CAGR).
Although there is no clear candidate to replace Martínez, the Italian press has been speculating for weeks about the possibility that it is Marco Patuano (former president) and Paolo Bertoluzzo (currently at Nexi). Internally, one of the options goes through Àlex Mestre, who is the next in the executive line after Martínez.
