New OTE chief elected

Shareholders of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE) elected a new board yesterday for the first time in its history. The board, in turn, elected Lefteris Antonakopoulos as the new Chairman and Managing Director to replace Nikos Manassis. Until now, the State, which used to control OTE, appointed 12 out of the 15 board members and designated the top officials. Antonakopoulos may have been the government’s choice to succeed Manassis but his election was not a formality, given the fact that the State now controls only 41.75 percent of OTE. Antonakopoulos, currently the President of the Federation of Greek Industries (SEV), has served on OTE’s board since November 2001, but, other than this brief stint, is a stranger to the telecommunications sector. He has spent most of his career – from 1971 to 1999 – with oil company Shell, serving, among other posts, as managing director of Shell Hellas SA (1992-96), managing director of Shell’s Spanish and Portuguese subsidiaries (1996-98) and as European Transformation Manager, overseeing the restructuring of the company’s industries and gas station network. Manassis was re-elected to OTE’s board. Rumors about his replacement by Antonakopoulos surfaced early on Tuesday, sending OTE’s shares tumbling 2.82 percent. Antonakopoulos told shareholders that he wanted OTE to consider expanding beyond the Balkans. At present, OTE controls subsidiaries in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and Armenia. Of his election, he said it was «a positive sign that there will be less and less government intervention.» Five other people were re-elected to OTE’s board: OTE Vice Chairman Giorgos Skarpelis; Iakovos Georganas, vice chairman of Piraeus Bank; Stavros Panas, professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Thessaloniki; Christos Polyzogopoulos, president of the General Confederation of Greek Labor; and Christos Spanos, president of the Association of Institutional Investors. New board members were: Lazaros Angelou, an OTE engineer and member of the Central Committee of the ruling Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK); Giorgos Argyropoulos, OTE’s general technical manager; Theodoros Veniamis, shipowner; Michalis Georgantopoulos, managing director of state refinery EKO-ELDA; Lana Mandyla, lawyer; Giorgos Papaconstantinou, special secretary for the «Information Society» at the Economy Ministry and a member of the Council of Economic Experts; Apostolos Tamvakakis, deputy governor of the National Bank of Greece; and Phaedon Tamvakakis, managing director of the investment firm Alpha Trust.