Swisscom has announced Urs Schaeppi will succeed the late Carsten Schloter as CEO.
Schaeppi, who has acted as CEO since Schloter was found dead in an apparent suicide in July, will take on the permanent role immediately, the Swiss incumbent telco said…
Swisscom has announced Urs Schaeppi will succeed the late Carsten Schloter as CEO.
Schaeppi, who has acted as CEO since Schloter was found dead in an apparent suicide in July, will take on the permanent role immediately, the Swiss incumbent telco said in a statement today.
Schaeppi has been with the company for 15 years, becoming head of corporate business in 2007 and head of Swisscom Switzerland at the start of this year.
Swisscom board chairman Hansueli Loosli noted that Schaeppi has “in-depth knowledge” of the company and wider sector as well as “an excellent track record”.
Schaeppi said the company will continue with its current strategy and work to strengthen its core business. “We see opportunities for growth in cloud solutions and related markets such as home networking and e-health.”
The new CEO will also focus on developing the company’s services for business customers. Swisscom is also working to streamline its organisational structure.
On a conference call on the Q3 results today, Schaeppi stressed that Italian fixed-line unit Fastweb is not for sale and that Swisscom intends to develop it. There has been considerable speculation that Swisscom may sell Fastweb, which it acquired in 2007 for €4.6bn (US$6.2). In June, Bloomberg cited people familiar with the matter as saying UK-based Vodafone has made informal approaches for the Italian company, but Swisscom rejected them.
Berne-based Swisscom reported net revenues of SFr8.46bn (US$9.27bn) for the nine months ended 30 September 2013, up 0.4% year-on-year. EBITDA was down 2.9% to SFr3.25bn (US$3.56bn).
