The supervisory board of Dutch telco KPN has nominated two top executives from Mexico-based shareholder America Movil (AMX) to join its ranks.
The nominations of AMX CFO Carlos Garcia Moreno and COO Oscar von Hauske, made in accordance with the…
The supervisory board of Dutch telco KPN has nominated two top executives from Mexico-based shareholder America Movil (AMX) to join its ranks.
The nominations of AMX CFO Carlos Garcia Moreno and COO Oscar von Hauske, made in accordance with the recently-signed ‘relationship agreement’ between the two telcos, will be decided upon at KPN’s shareholder AGM on 10 April.
As part of the agreement, Carlos Slim’s Mexico-based telco agreed to vote in favour of KPN’s proposed €4bn capital raise provided it gains two seats on the supervisory board.
AMX COO Hauske is also a member of Telekom Austria, in which AMX acquired a significant minority stake in June 2012. Its 22.76 % stake in Telekom Austria makes it the second largest shareholder after the Austrian state. Hauske was elected to the board of the Austrian incumbent in October last year.
The nominations, announced by KPN today, are widely anticipated to be approved given AMX is its largest shareholder with a 27.7% stake and the Dutch telco’s shareholder meetings have historically had relatively low turnouts.
KPN shareholders are also set to decide upon a number of other changes to the eight-strong supervisory board at the AGM. Four members – Mr Risseeuw, Ms Van Lier Lels, Mr Routs and Mr Haank –have reached the end of their four-year terms but, following confirmation of their availability, have been nominated for reappointment. Ms Van Lier Lels and Mr Routs have both said they are available for an extra year.
Commenting on the reappointments in its statement today, KPN said the “supervisory board firmly believes that it is in the best interests of the company to ensure continuity in the supervisory board”.
Mr Bischoff, a board member for ten years, will also step down because of other commitments.
KPN’s €4bn capital raise consists of a rights issue, which the company said would be limited to €3bn, and hybrid securities.
Today, Fitch assigned the hybrid securities an expected ‘BB’ rating. The agency said the Dutch telco intends to raise €2bn in deeply-subordinated hybrid securities in euro and GBP tranches over time, reserving the option to defer coupon payments.
“As a result of these features, the ‘BB(EXP)’ rating assigned to the proposed securities is two notches below KPN’s ‘BBB’ Long-term Issuer Default Rating (IDR), which reflects the securities’ increased loss severity and heightened risk of non-performance relative to the senior obligations,” Fitch said.
