Icelandic shareholder gets two seats on Elisa board

Compromise reached among major owners

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The big owners of Elisa have reached agreement on the composition of the telecommunications company's Board of Directors.
      The Icelandic investment company Novator is getting the two seats that it wanted on the board. However, the final outcome of the discussions leaves Novator with less of a foothold on the board than it had hoped for.
      Elisa's shareholders' meeting will formalise the composition of the Board of Directors on March 18th.
      The new agreement was negotiated by Novator and the pension insurance company Varma, which represented other pension companies owning Elisa stock.
     
The Chairman of the Board will be Risto Siilasmaa, a current member of the board. Also continuing on the board will be its previous member Ossi Virolainen.
      New candidates for membership on the board include Elektrobit CEO Pertti Korhonen as well as Eira Palin-Lehtinen, who had previously worked in the management of the Nordea banking concern.
      Novator's candidates as representatives on the board are two employees, Tomas Otto Hansson, as well as Orri Hauksson, who has been the company's spokesman in Finland.
     
At an extraordinary Elisa shareholders' meeting, Novator called for the removal of two present members from the Elisa Board of Directors. One of them was Siilasmaa, who is now being raised to the post of chairman.
      However, Lasse Kurkilahti and Matti Manner, who were named to the board two years ago, will have to go.
      The pension companies wanted the majority on the board, and the chairman to be genuinely independent from the Icelandic company.
      The pension companies' front felt that Kurkilahti and Manner could not be seen to be independent of Novator, although at least Kurkilahti has denied being a "Novator man".
      On Wednesday, Kurkilahti did not want to speculate on why he is being dropped from the board.
     
Novator is owned by Icelandic investor Thor Björgólfsson. He sparked an outcry in Finland last autumn by proposing that Elisa be divided in two - into an ownership company, and the actual operator, which deals with business in Finland.
      Elisa's Board of Directors, and the pension companies opposed the idea. Novator withdrew its proposal before the January shareholders' meeting.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Director of Novator Finland amazed at Elisa Board´s course of action (11.1.2008)
  Icelanders offer compromise in initiative on Elisa changes (10.1.2008)
  Elisa Board Member expresses disapproval of policy chosen on corporate restructuring (13.12.2007)
  Novator fails in bid to change Elisa Board (22.1.2008)
  Foreign shareholders flock to Elisa extraordinary shareholders´ meeting (21.1.2008)

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