Prisa’s new partners force the departure of Mexican director Roberto Alcántara and his replacement by Andrés Varela
Global Alconaba, the businessmen’s company that bought 7.07% of Prisa’s shares from Telefónica, is gaining strength at the top of the group. The Shareholders’ Meeting held on Tuesday approved, with 73.47% of shareholders, the departure from the Board of Directors of proprietary director Roberto Alcántara, proposed by Prisa’s new partners outside the agenda.
The Board of Directors meeting on Tuesday approved the replacement by Andrés Varela Entrecanales, representing Global Alconaba. He is one of the four founders of Globomedia, along with Emilio Aragón, Daniel Écija and José Miguel Contreras, with whom he has subsequently been linked to several professional projects and to the company The Pool Talent Management, one of the production companies that will produce the docu-series about the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
Alcántara, a Mexican businessman, owns 5% of Prisa’s share capital. The representative of Global Alconaba argued at the meeting that the company aspires to join the board of directors, being the fourth largest shareholder and having a larger share capital than Alcántara. “We would have liked him to have withdrawn, but he refused. Faced with his refusal, there is no alternative but to propose his resignation,” said the representative of the new Prisa shareholders.
With this appointment, the new partners, which include Alberto Knapp, founder of the consultancy firm specialising in the design and execution of digital transformation projects The Cocktail, part of WPP, and Daniel Romero-Andreu, founder of the consultancy firm Thinking Heads, seek to gain weight in the company’s 14-member board of directors.
Prisa’s Board of Directors has also approved the appointment of Jorge Rivera, until now Director of Communication and Institutional Relations, as Corporate and Institutional Relations Director and Cristina Zoilo, until now Director of External Communication, as Director of Communication.
Shareholders endorse Prisa’s new strategy
The AGM has endorsed with a majority support of 99.99% of shareholders the changes undertaken in 2021, the new strategy presented by the Group and the management of the Board.
Among other points, it approved the new remuneration policy for directors for 2022, 2023 and 2024, the re-election of Francisco Cuadrado and Teresa Quirós as executive and independent directors, respectively, and an increase in share capital by offsetting loans, as part of the recently approved refinancing process.
The latter is the priority for the group’s chairman, Joseph Oughourlian. “I assure you that you have my full commitment and that of the Board to reduce the debt in the coming years. This is my main objective and I will do my utmost to achieve it,” he said.
