Content of the article
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – The new board of directors of Brazilian electricity company Eletrobras on Friday chose former CEO Wilson Ferreira Junior to take over his role and elected former Petrobras CEO Ivan Monteiro as chairman of the board of directors, the company said in a statement.
Shareholders also named a new board of directors for the newly privatized utility on Friday.
Ferreira will take office by September 20, returning to the role after serving as CEO of Eletrobras from 2016 to 2021.
Outgoing CEO Rodrigo Limp will remain with the company as chief regulatory officer.
Content of the article
Ferreira had left Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, as Eletrobras is officially known, in early 2021 after seeing the company’s privatization bid lose ground, saying at the time the process had been delayed by the pandemic and stalled in Congress.
The government, however, managed to privatize Latin America’s largest utility earlier this year in a 33.68 billion reais ($6.5 billion) deal that paved the way for the return of Ferreira at his old job.
The move represents a fresh start for Ferreira, who first took the reins of Eletrobras in 2016, appointed by former chairman Michel Temer to oversee the privatization process from its earliest stages.
He retained the post under President Jair Bolsonaro, but left the electricity giant last year to run fuel distributor Vibra Energia SA because he believed the privatization bid would not be successful.
Rumors of his return to Eletrobras had been circulating since he resigned from his position at Vibra last month.
“Markets should view it as positive,” Credit Suisse said last month. “(Ferreira) was CEO from 2016 to 2021 and has started the turnaround of the business, so the implementation of a new efficiency plan could be faster.” (Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Writing by Gabriel Araujo and Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Kim Coghill)
financialpost
