Mannesmann shareholders attack Vodafone
By Kirsten Bialdiga in Dsseldorf and Dan Roberts in London
Published: June 5 2000 18:33GMT | Last Updated: June 5 2000 20:40GMT
Vodafone AirTouch was attacked by angry German shareholders on Monday after chief executive Chris Gent failed to show up to the last annual general meeting of Mannesmann ahead of its formal takeover by the British mobile phone group.
Worker representatives on Mannesmann's supervisory board initially reacted by refusing to endorse the appointment of Julian Horn-Smith as a successor to Klaus Esser, the previous management board chairman.
Later, they reluctantly agreed to the appointment but remained angry at Vodafone's decision to renege on several commitments made at the time of the œ113bn ($170bn) hostile bid.
In particular, unions claim the Dsseldorf headquarters will only be a branch office of the group, rather than - as promised by Mr Gent - an important operations centre.
Vodafone said German law prevented non-German speakers from chairing the annual general meeting, and Mr Gent was not able to attend anyway due to prior commitments. The meeting was chaired instead by Josef Ackermann, Deutsche Bank management board member and one of two deputies to Mr Gent.
J”rg Pluta, a shareholder representative and member of the DSW shareholders association, said: "This is a poor debut on the part of Gent - there is nothing more important for a supervisory board chairman than his accountability."
Mr Horn-Smith defended his chief executive's decision to stay away: "You can't be in two places at once and Chris had a prior commitment to visit investors in the United States."
He claimed the supervisory board meeting had been "diplomatic but plain speaking".
Thomas Geitner, formerly chairman of Otelo, the German mobile phone provider, also joined Mannesmann's board.
Mr Esser, the departing chairman, came in for strong criticism from shareholders, over his failed defence of Mannesmann and a DM60m ($29m) golden handshake. One shareholder commented on Esser's defence with the words, "operation successful, patient unfortunately dead".
This reflects German shareholders' perception that Mannesmann had in effect suffered a break-up at the hands of Vodafone.
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