Fortis leaves battle over chairmanship to shareholders
The board of Fortis Bank this week declined to put its weight behind any of the candidates for the chairmanship of the company, instead sending a list of six names of candidate-directors to the shareholders’ meetings in February in Brussels and Utrecht. Shareholders at those meetings will have the opportunity to choose one of the candidates as chairman.
The original choice of the Fortis board to replace departed chairman Maurice Lippens was Viscount Etienne Davignon, a heavyweight of the Belgian business scene and former chairman of Société Générale, the company that later became Fortis. But shareholders meeting in December in the Netherlands and here narrowly rejected his candidacy: among other things, Davignon is seen as too close to Lippens, whose departure was caused by the collapse of the bank’s share price, which led to it being taken over – perhaps temporarily – by the French-based BNP Paribas.
Fortis had tried to entice Karel Vinck, another heavyweight with a reputation for stepping in to rescue ailing firms. But at 70 years of age, Vinck said he has enough on his plate. He chairs the agency charged with managing road traffic in Antwerp and has been asked by the EU to help organise freight traffic. “There just isn’t time to do those jobs properly if I include Fortis,†he said. Fortis also carried out soundings on Thomas Leysen of the Belgian Enterprise Federation VBO and Herman Daems of investment company Gimv.
Fortis’ main concern may be to shut out the champion of the small shareholder, Georges Ugeux. His candidacy as chairman is supported by Deminor, the shareholder representative group heavily involved in court action to stop the sale of Fortis to BNP Paribas, as well as to extract damages from the former members of the board, including Lippens. Ugeux is considered a financial expert. His career began at Société Générale, before stints at Morgan Stanley, General Electric and the European Investment Fund. From 1996-2003 he was a senior managing director of the New York Stock Exchange.
This week the Fortis board decided not to endorse any of the six names which will go forward to shareholders. As well as Ugeux, they are Jan Zegering Hadders, Dirk van Daele, Philippe Casiers, Jozef De May and Andrew Spencer Doman – the latter two supported by Chinese shareholder Ping An. Ludwig Criel and Guy de Selliers de Moranville will be nominated as non-executive directors.
As well as choosing a chairman and directors, shareholders in Brussels and Utrecht will have the opportunity to have their say on the proposed sale to BNP Paribas, after a court ruled that the sale could not go ahead without consulting them.
