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Former Danone boss Faber: Bad numbers, immediate sacking
Photo: ERIC PIERMONT / AFP
The food company Danone has fired its boss Emmanuel Faber at pressure from shareholders.
Faber is vacating his post with immediate effect, the group announced on Monday at its headquarters in Paris.
The new head of the board of directors is Gilles Schnepp, the former head of the French electronics company Legrand.
Until a new CEO is found, Véronique Penchienati-Bosetta and Shane Grant are to lead the group on a transitional basis.
Faber was ousted two weeks ago under pressure from investors.
At that time, however, it was still said that Faber would remain Chairman of the Board of Directors of Danone.
Originally, he was not supposed to hand over responsibility for day-to-day business until a new CEO was found.
The investment fund Artisan Partners, the third largest shareholder in Danone with three percent capital, insisted on selling Faber entirely.
Danone had lost a quarter of its market value within a year.
Artisan Partners and the fund Bluebell Capital Partners had therefore been putting pressure on for months to sell Faber.
You accused the 57-year-old of mismanagement in the Corona crisis.
In the Corona year 2020, Danone's sales fell by 6.6 percent to 23.6 billion euros.
The sale of bottled drinking water even collapsed by more than 20 percent.
Faber has been General Manager at Danone since 2014 and Group CEO since 2017.
He has initiated a restructuring process that provides for up to 2,000 jobs to be cut.
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mik / AFP
