Sacked for 'not moving fast enough'

Denis Hennequin has been sacked by the company's board and replaced by a trio of executives. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

THE chairman and chief executive of French hotel group Accor has been sacked by the company's board and replaced by a trio of executives.

In a company statement after an emergency board meeting, Accor said board members had taken note of reservations by Denis Hennequin on company strategy and "had thus unanimously put an end to his mandate effective April 23, 2013".

The board of Accor - Europe's biggest hotel group and owner of chains Ibis, Mercure and Sofitel - is dominated by private equity groups Colony Capital and Eurozeo which have grown increasingly dissatisfied with Hennequin, a celebrated French executive hired away from McDonald's Europe two years ago.

The impending eviction of Hennequin had been reported by several media sources for days and sent shares in Accor tumbling two per cent on Tuesday despite the market soaring more than three per cent overall.

Centre to the rift between Hennequin and his board was a strategy demanded by Colony and Eurozeo for Accor to unload its property holdings in order to turn itself into a hotel franchise business.

Hennequin was carrying out this mandate, but not fast enough for the activist funds that together own about 20 per cent of Accor.

Analysts at Barclays said tensions had grown too great between the entrepreneurial minded Hennequin and activist fund managers seeking quick financial performance.

Hennequin had himself replaced the previous chief executive Gilles Pelisson who was also suddenly sacked in 2010.
Hennequin "will be replaced by a transition leadership of Philippe Citerne as chairman, Sebastian Bazin as deputy chairman and Yann Caillere as chief executive," the company said.

Citerne is a former top banker at Societe Generale and currently an Accor board member. Bazin is head of Colony Capital and Caillere is Accor deputy chief executive.

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