French state picks new boss for embattled EDF
Schneider Electric executive Luc Rémont to get top job as government readies full renationalisation
The French government has picked a senior Schneider Electric executive to head EDF as it moves to fully renationalise the embattled nuclear power operator and seeks an end to reactor outages straining electricity supplies across Europe.
Luc Rémont is set to become chair and chief executive after President Emmanuel Macron cleared his nomination at the group, which is 84 per state-owned, the Élysée Palace said.
His appointment, still subject to parliamentary checks, comes as the government kicks off a nationalisation process. A €9.7bn tender offer to buy out minority shareholders could be handed to regulators next week, two people close to the process said.
The management overhaul at France’s former electricity monopoly follows a fraught search for candidates that underscored some of the turmoil around a group with huge industrial tasks ahead and that has long been intertwined with politics.
Run-ins between the government and outgoing boss Jean-Bernard Lévy over some of the company’s operational problems have spilled into the public in recent weeks, in a blame game over the state of its existing reactors and France’s hesitation to invest more in the sector.
Several other contenders shied away from the job, while Rémont had objected to a government bid to split the chair and chief executive roles, arguing that he needed to be fully empowered to have a straight line to the state, several people familiar with the discussions said.
“Having a relationship with the government is at the heart of the job,” said one person close to the discussions.
Already highly indebted, EDF is gearing up to build at least six new nuclear reactors in France, the biggest order in more than a quarter of a century. It is still struggling with long delays and cost overruns on existing projects.
A record number of outages at its 56 reactors have plunged its nuclear output to 30-year lows, torn a hole in its profits and turned France into a net importer of power in the middle of an energy crisis. On Thursday, a series of strikes over wages further squeezed EDF’s output.
The state has not ruled out turning to EDF again to foot the bill for some of the measures to shield consumers from soaring electricity prices, repeating a move that had incensed investors this year — and had added to incentives to bring the group back under state control.
An engineer by training, Rémont is little known to the French public. The 53-year-old’s career has spanned posts in the economy ministry — including under Nicolas Sarkozy before he became president — and a stretch as an investment banker at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Along the way he struck up relationships with the likes of Alexis Kohler, one of Macron’s closest advisers, people who know him said.
At industrial group Schneider, which is focused on automation services that improve energy efficiency, Rémont ran the French unit before taking on some international operations, from east Asia to the Middle East.
“There are few people who’ve been exposed, and had to understand in great detail, the energy challenge from the point of view of so many different countries,” said Gilles Vermot Desroches, director of sustainable development at Schneider.