Orange’s board of directors, which met yesterday, elected Jacques Aschenbroich, 67, non-executive chairman of the group’s board of directors. He confirmed Christel Heydemann, 47, as managing director and Ramon Fernandez as deputy managing director.
The president of Orange will blow his 68and candle next June 3. And the statutes of Orange confronted him with the age limit of 70 years. Statutes that have since been amended to allow him to honor a four-year term. A maneuver that caused a tussle between shareholders and unions.
Jacques Aschenbroich is chairman of the board of directors of Orange and chairman of the board of directors of Valeo. Previously, he was CEO of the Valeo group from March 2009 to February 2016, then Chairman and CEO until January 2022.
“The 2022 compensation policy was only voted at 50.55%”
The general assembly which preceded the board of directors, the last chaired by Stéphane Richard, also approved the remuneration of the new directors.
“The 2022 compensation policy was only voted at 50.55%. The criticisms expressed, of different natures depending on the investors, led a large number of investors not to be able to vote “for” this single resolution, or else to abstain, ”indicates Orange in a press release.
If Christel Heydemann’s fixed salary (900,000 euros) is 50,000 euros lower than that of her predecessor, her higher variable compensation ceiling would allow her to be paid more than Stéphane Richard, with an overall envelope of up to 2, 25 million euros per year. And she will receive a pension-hat which the former CEO will not have benefited from.
While the Orange Board of Directors wanted to grant Stéphane Richard an exceptional severance payment of 475,000 euros gross for the year 2022 – i.e. around four months’ salary – the manager finally chose to waive it under pressure from part of the shareholders.
“Faced with the incomprehension of certain shareholders who consider that this allocation does not comply with the principles that must apply to the compensation of corporate officers and that this method should have been provided for and anticipated, Stéphane Richard decides to waive this exceptional compensation,” Orange management said in a press release on Tuesday.
Sentenced in the fall for complicity in the embezzlement of public funds as part of a part of the Tapie affair, the manager had to give up running again at the head of the operator, while agreeing to ensure interim time to find successors.