GDF Suez gets angry with its wind subsidiary

GDF SUEZ announced Friday in a statement that "the general meeting of shareholders of Compagnie du Vent has decided to replace" its chairman and founder Jean-Michel Germa by Thierry Conil, "over 30 years experience in GDF Suez ". "A major strategic dispute," the statement continued, between GDF Suez, which owns 56.8% of Compagnie du Vent and its founder Jean-Michel Germa, which owns 43.2% is the origin of this separation.

Problem: Jean-Michel Germa judicially contest his dismissal, even though he knew his scheduled departure. First on the form. Feeling the dispute with its powerful shareholder grow for months, Jean-Michel Germa had sought this week the protection of the commercial court of Montpellier (seat LCV). He had requested the postponement of Thursday's meeting but GDF Suez has received the same day, the Tribunal de Commerce "authorization" to conduct this meeting. Jean-Michel Germa considers that the meeting "was not held." The founder of the company that employs 156 employees (sales: 27 million) is "very shocked" by the group methods.

In all likelihood this is a fight about the price to be paid by GDF Suez to German for his minority stake in the company, which has the best chance of all to develop an offshore wind farm in France with the Projet des deux Côtes - Germa will most likely be unable to pay for his share of the overall investment (43% of 750MW means spending 300MEUR if the project is bank financed, 3 times that if it isn't) but his stake is potentially worth quite a bit...

Wind power