The gas group’s board of directors decided on Thursday, February 6, not to renew the mandate of its director general, Isabelle Kocher. A decision highly criticized by certain political leaders.
It is the epilogue of an internal war that had lasted for months. The board of directors of Engie decided, Thursday, February 6, not to renew the mandate of its director general, Isabelle Kocher. A decision taken with the agreement of the State, which owns 24% of the group’s shares. Normalienne, aggregated in physics and from the prestigious Corps of Mines, the fifties will therefore abandon the management of the former GDF Suez, now Engie, and its 158,500 employees at the end of May.
The board of directors argues that it wants “take a new step” of the transformation of the group and “deepen your strategy”. But the non-renewal of Isabelle Kocher is criticized. Franceinfo details the reproaches born of this eviction and the responses of the group’s presidency.
1She was the sole leader of the CAC 40
What is the criticism? The only woman at the head of a CAC 40 company loses her job. “We will have a fully male CAC 40 in 2020. No problem for anyone? That presents a problem ! Even if, for Ms. Kocher, the real subject is not that it is a woman or a man, it is that she is competent “, thus lamented on franceinfo the president of the Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand, one of the supporters of Isabelle Kocher.
What does the Presidency of Engie say? In an interview with Echoes (article subscribers), Friday, February 7, the chairman of the group’s board of directors, Jean-Pierre Clamadieu, believes that “gender cannot be the entry point” to find out if Isabelle Kocher’s mandate should be renewed. “My primary responsibility is towards Engie”, he asserts. However, according to him, the director general did not “managed to demonstrate that she was the right person to deepen” business transformation.
The same argument was hammered out on Friday by the Minister of the City and Housing, Julien Denormandie. “We are not going to judge the work” Isabelle Kocher “in terms of whether it is a man or a woman, he said. We are talking about a company where strategic decisions are essential for the supply of electricity or for the constitution of the city of tomorrow. “
Isabelle Kocher ousted from Engie: “We must not have false debates”, says Julien Denormandie, Minister of the City and Housing pic.twitter.com/IJX2kDyPBB
– franceinfo (@franceinfo) February 7, 2020
2She wanted to make Engie a “green” group
What is the criticism? Isabelle Kocher wanted to make Engie the world leader in low carbon transition. This strategy won him the support of fifty personalities from the right and the left, who demanded his renewal at the head of Engie in a column published Monday, February 3 in Les Echos (subscribers article). The title of the text was explicit: “Isabelle Kocher, an essential voice for a France leader in the green economy”. Among the signatories, Yannick Jadot. MEP EELV was surprised on Wednesday 5 February that the executive decided to “land” a leader who commits to less polluting energy consumption.
“We have a woman patron of the CAC 40 who engages a large energy group towards transition, efficiency, renewable energies. The French State, through the President of the Republic, and Minister Bruno Le Maire, want to sanction her , want to land her “, he estimated on Franceinfo. Since 2016, Engie has sold 15 billion assets in fossil fuels.
What does the Presidency of Engie say? It does not call into question the fact that Isabelle Kocher knew how to wear “a very ambitious vision of Engie as a leader in energy transition “. “The exit from exploration-production activities and from coal-fired power stations is to his credit”, recognizes Jean-Pierre Clamadieu in Les Echos (subscribers article).
But he criticizes Isabelle Kocher, who has set out to develop energy services a lot (in order to achieve energy savings, in particular), for having taken “delay in four years in the field of electricity generation and gas infrastructure activities, which today represent 80% of our profits (…) And in France, gas has no place than it should have in the energy transition. “ In summary, the president wishes to refocus on the heart of the business.
3It would not be appreciated by Emmanuel Macron
What is the criticism? The press echoed this: “For years, the whole of Paris has whispered that Emmanuel Macron does not like Madame Kocher”, written The world. Worst, “the head of state is said to have given Jean-Pierre Clamadieu a ‘licence to kill ‘when the chemist was appointed president of the energy company in May 2018 “. Last December, The gallery was already reporting that the leader was “in the viewfinder of power”. Emmanuel Macron is therefore suspected of having lowered his thumb and played a decisive role in the ouster of Isabelle Kocher. The advocacy of fifty personalities in favor of the leader appeared in The echoes would have aggravated his disgrace.
Because the text was perceived, according to The gallery, As an initiative bringing together “mainly opponents of Emmanuel Macron, without any legitimacy to decide the fate of Engie”. Hence the decision, continues the newspaper, “to convene an extraordinary board of directors”. “We could not let the number of signatories accumulate until the end of February”, recognizes a source with The gallery.
What does the Presidency of Engie say? “Engie is a listed group, with governance, and the board of directors is the only body empowered to appoint the chief executive officer”, replies Jean-Pierre Clamadieu. The world also indicates that the President of the Republic seemed “want to stay away” of the case, and that the manager would have mainly paid a “too deep divorce” with “its administrators”.
4She objected to a possible “dismantling” of Engie
What is the criticism? Xavier Bertrand, again, argues that Isabelle Kocher was embarrassing because she opposed “to any dismantling of this business”. “She was the guarantor of the fact that there would be no dismantling. I think that her departure, the ulterior motive, the manipulation that is behind all this, is that Engie is dismantled”, said the former minister. According to him, “Mrs. Kocher had said very clearly that she would oppose the dismantling”.
Xavier Bertrand explains on Franceinfo the motivations that would push, according to him, the executive to favor the dismantling: “What I criticize today for the head of state is to let it go, because if there is a dismantling, let’s talk about the underside of the cards, if there is a sale of part of the activities of Engie, you know what’s going on? It drives the share price up and it’s good for the shareholders. And the state is the largest shareholder. “
What does the Presidency of Engie say? “The debate on the dismantling of the group has no place to be. No one on the board of directors has ever mentioned such a scenario”, evacuates Jean-Pierre Clamadieu in The echoes.
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