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The CEO of EDP with suspended functions, António Mexia, informed the shareholders of the company that he is not available to rejoin the governing bodies, leaving the new leader, Miguel Stilwell, an open path to elect a new management team that will be elected at general meeting in January.
António Mexia, who since June has been prevented from exercising the management functions of the company, by order of the criminal investigating judge Carlos Alexandre, ends his term in December.
In the same situation is the company administrator, João Manso Neto, who, like Mexia, is accused in the so-called “EDP case”.
In a statement sent this Monday to the Securities Market Commission (CMVM), EDP reveals that it received letters from both executives “informing them of their unwillingness to join any list of candidates for EDP’s governing bodies for the next term. (2021-2023) “.
EDP also reveals that it received a communication from all the shareholders represented in its General and Supervisory Council (CGS), indicating that, “in view of the recent developments related to the PCAE [presidente do conselho de administração executivo] suspended from functions ”, they understand that a new management body must be elected for the period 2021-2023.
The election, which should take place at the general meeting, will allow “maintaining the stability of the company and its businesses, sending a strong message to the market that EDP’s strategy and targeted growth remain unchanged.”
In this sense, the shareholders have already asked the interim CEO, Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, to present “a proposal on the composition of the CAE [conselho de administração executivo] for the next quarter ”.
The elective general meeting is expected to take place in January next year.
Miguel Stilwell replaced António Mexia in the management of EDP in July, accumulating the presidency of the company with the financial portfolio. João Manso Neto’s portfolios passed to the administrator Rui Teixeira, who accumulated the operation in Spain with the renewables business.
In this afternoon’s statement, EDP “recognizes the indelible contribution of Dr. António Mexia and Dr. João Manso Neto to the growth and creation of value for the Company and its employees. interested in the last 15 years ”.
It also “expressly records the importance of the leadership of Dr. António Mexia and the highly relevant contribution of Dr. João Manso Neto in meeting EDP’s objectives in this period”.
The two directors, constituted accused in the “EDP case” and accused of the crimes of active corruption and economic participation in business, are still awaiting the result of the appeal they filed against the coercive measures approved by Judge Carlos Alexandre at the beginning of the last summer.
The Portuguese “largest multinational”
When saying goodbye to EDP, António Mexia points out that “there are difficult decisions in life and this is one of them”, even more so, “because it results from a context of incomprehensible injustice”.
In the letter sent to the shareholders, to which the PUBLIC had access, the manager does not leave his credits in the hands of others. While preparing to end the cycle of almost 15 years in the leadership of the company, Mexia recalls that in this period “EDP’s market capitalization doubled, and the group today has the two largest companies listed on the Lisbon Stock Exchange. [a EDP e a EDP Renováveis], which together represent more than half of the added value ”of the Portuguese benchmark.
EDP has become the “largest multinational of Portuguese origin with a presence in 19 countries” and an “unavoidable leader in renewable energies, with a strategy focused on the energy transition”, he highlights.
Highlighting his “enormous affection for the company” and “its people”, António Mexia says that he made his career in the company, where he joined in 2006, always on the right side of the law and ethics: “I always tried to make everyone will give their best, systematically preserving the limits imposed by common sense, the law and ethical and moral values without which neither I nor EDP can live without ”.
And, in reference to the lawsuit that made headlines in June 2017, he again expresses incomprehension for having heard “for the first time” of a case “that had begun in 2012 with an anonymous complaint” and that “was already five years old of investigations ”.
In this case, the two directors are accused of having jointly corrupted the former Socialist Economy Minister Manuel Pinho, the former Social Democratic State Secretary Artur Trindade, the former Pinho adviser, João Conceição (today, administrator of the REN), and the former director General of Energy and Geology Miguel Barreto (they are also charged).
In this process, supposed favors to EDP related to guaranteed rental contracts (the costs of maintaining the contractual balance, or CMEC), the extension of the concessions of the dams or the granting of a license without term for the hydroelectric plant of Sines.
“Indignation and amazement”
António Mexia refers to the coercion measures proposed by the Public Ministry and validated by the criminal investigating judge, and his dismissal from EDP as “incomprehensible facts.”
He also says that “it is with deep indignation and astonishment that in the last more than three years” he has continued “to see the development of the process from insinuations and suspicions, based on a fanciful and purely speculative construction, without any attachment to the truth of the facts”. .
Recalling that EDP had the Portuguese State as a shareholder, he underlines that “all the decisions were unanimously approved by the competent bodies” and is calm about “the resolution of this process”.
The fact that he is prevented from exercising his functions and one month after fulfilling his mandate, “coupled with an artificially elaborated investigation”, leads Mexia “to consider that it is time to change” and “contribute” to the “transition” at EDP “Regardless of the decision that may be issued” by the court on the coercion measures in force for almost six months.
Looking ahead, it only promises to “be associated with professional challenges in new areas” that contribute to “a more sustainable world from an environmental, economic, social and cultural point of view”. And a certainty: these challenges “will never conflict with EDP’s interests and projects”.
