After two evenings of intense discussions, the Mithra Board of Directors has finally completed its work. As expected, it looks like Leon Van Rompuy, the current CEO, will soon be fired from his post. The press release says “three candidates have been selected,” but no names have been released at this stage.
Break on Thursday evening, the board of directors finally ended on Friday. Behind the scenes of this protracted summit: intense tension and rebellion against current CEO Leon Van Rompuy.
At the head of the manoeuvre: the camp of François Fornieri, the company’s former CEO indicted in the Nethys case in January 2021 and still a major shareholder. He and other disgruntled shareholders (about a third of the capital) blame Leon Van Rompuy for the company’s poor financial results.
Mithra’s share price is at its lowest in the stock market. At the best of times, the title lost nine-tenths of its value. The economic situation of Mitra is deteriorating, the balance sheet shows fifty million short-term debts and the same in the medium term. Another black spot: A marketing deal for Donesta, a new menopausal drug, turned out to be less successful than expected (although the company took advantage of this board meeting to announce “promising initial safety results”).
A press release sent at the end of this board meeting indicated that Leon Van Rompuy will continue to serve as CEO while he is selected to succeed him.
François Fornieri, who is sometimes called a potential successor, for his part said that he would continue to “play [son] an advisory role for the company if the new CEO so desires. “