Spain’s telecommunications large Telefonica introduced on Saturday that it had changed its CEO, in a shock transfer prompted by stress from main shareholders.
An emergency assembly of the corporate’s board elected Catalan businessperson Marc Murtra to switch Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, it mentioned in an announcement.
The firm mentioned the choice was taken “in view of Telefonica’s new shareholding structure and that some of its relevant shareholders have expressed the convenience of embarking on a new stage in the executive chairmanship.”
The on-line newspaper El Confidencial first reported on Alvarez-Pallete’s doubtless departure on Saturday morning. Sources near the operation confirmed it to Agence France-Presse (AFP) earlier than the corporate issued an official assertion.
El Pais reported that the SEPI state holding firm, which lately took a ten% stake in Telefonica, had pushed for Alvarez-Pallete to get replaced by Murtra, at the moment head of the Spanish tech consulting group Indra.
Spanish media reviews say Murtra is near the center-left authorities of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
Alvarez-Pallete, who has headed Telefonica since April 2016, will obtain a 23-million-euro ($23.7 million) severance bundle.
Telefonica, which has operations in 9 Latin American nations, has been turbulent since Saudi group STC took a 9.9% stake in September 2023.
That led the Spanish state to re-enter the group’s capital via SEPI to defend its “strategic” function of offering providers to the nation’s armed forces.
Spanish banking group La Caixa additionally raised its stake to 9.9%.
Spain’s largest UGT union, one of many nation’s largest, expressed considerations in regards to the administration change. It hoped “that SEPI would clarify the motives and purpose of the changes in the presidency,” it mentioned in an announcement.
Telefonica has been dealing with elevated competitors in its house market following the latest merger of Orange and MasMovil, and the sale of Vodafone Espana to British funding fund Zegona.
Last 12 months, Telefonica introduced it will be slicing 3,400 of the 16,500 jobs in Spain.
Source: www.dailysabah.com