Peter Kaliaropoulos
Two top Batelco executives quit
Manama, September 24, 2013
Two more top executives at Bahrain's Batelco have quit the the former telecom monopoly as it tries to arrest a profit slump and integrate its largest ever acquisition, a Reuters report said.
The company vies domestically with units of Kuwait's Zain and Saudi Telecom Co (STC) as well as about 10 internet providers on an island of 1.3 million people.
The competition has helped push down Batelco's net profit in 12 of the past 13 quarters.
The summer departures of chief financial officer Marco Regnier and company veteran Peter Kaliaropoulos follow the abrupt resignation of former chief executive Sheikh Mohamed bin Isa al-Khalifa in May.
Batelco did not respond to several requests from Reuters for comment, it said.
"Batelco has recently experienced significant and unexpected changes to its top management," Standard & Poor's wrote in a note last week. "This could lead us to reassess our view of the company's management and governance downward."
Kaliaropoulos left Batelco in June after eight years, his roles having included CEO and chief operating officer.
His resignation was mentioned in the company's May bond prospectus. The departure of Regnier in August after 15 months as CFO was reported in an exchange filing.
When Sheikh Mohamed quit as CEO, Batelco said Kaliaropoulos would run the company in conjunction with a committee of three unidentified board members. It has not provided any update on its managerial structure following Kaliaropoulos's departure, Reuters said.
Batelco acquired Cable & Wireless Communications' Monaco and Islands Division for $570 million in April. This put Batelco in about 10 new, disparate markets such as the Channel Islands, Falkland Islands and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. - Reuters
