The supervisory board of France’s Wendel Investissement has unanimously decided to appoint one of its members, Frédéric Lemoine, to take over from Jean Bernard Lafonta as
The supervisory board of France’s Wendel Investissement has unanimously decided to appoint one of its members, Frédéric Lemoine, to take over from Jean Bernard Lafonta as chief executive.
Lemoine (pictured), 43, joined the supervisory board of Wendel in June 2008. Since 2005 he has been chairman of the supervisory board of Areva. Previously he was vice president of Capgemini Group in charge of finance.
Lafonta has been chief executive of the firm for the past eight years.
Wendel has also announced its results for 2008. It posted consolidated sales up 15 per cent to EUR5,412m. This performance was obtained with a balance between organic growth (averaging 7.6 per cent) and external growth (7.5 per cent).
Net income from subsidiaries, group share, reached EUR395m, up ten per cent from 2007. Non-recurring items for the period constituted a loss of EUR292m, as the result of the application of IFRS rules, which led the group to reduce the value of its assets by a total of EUR555m. Net income, group share, totalled EUR158m.
‘The performance achieved by Wendel in 2008 despite a challenging environment, is further evidence of the resilience of the group’s growth model and the quality of its companies, which have all made significant efforts toward adaptation,’ the firm says. ‘In 2009, Wendel will maintain and intensify the adaptation plans that has been implemented for the past 18 months, optimizing both operations of companies and the group’s financial structure. In this difficult environment, Wendel will focus on operational targets for 2009 and 2010. In the long term, the strengths of Wendel Group will enable it to continue to seize value-creating opportunities.’
In 2009/10 the group says it intends to focus on: strengthening subsidiaries’ potential for rebound; maintaining a high level of liquidity, thereby affording high protection initially against market risks while making it possible to seize bottom-of-the-cycle opportunities; and seeking to continue creating value through arbitrage on debt.
The company says it has made commitments to its subsidiaries and will support their plans to adapt their operations to the particularly difficult economic situation with which they are faced. These plans already total more than EUR1.5bn for 2009.
