The meeting yesterday of the Board of Directors of Accor finally gave rise to a crisis summit with double result the explosion of the said Council and the appointment of a new President in the person of Gilles Pélisson Director General of the

The meeting, yesterday, of the Board of Directors of Accor finally gave rise to a crisis summit with double result the explosion of the said Council and the appointment of a new President in the person of Gilles Pélisson, Director General of the hotel and services group. A little more than three years (January 9, 2006) after his arrival at the head of the company as operational pattern, it is thus formally became the CEO. The strengthening of its responsibilities will be endorsed at the next General Assembly, on 13 may, which should also consider a "tightening" of the Council.

First raised behind the scenes ("Les Echos" of yesterday), the hypothesis of the appointment of Gilles Pélisson as CEO was therefore quick to materialize in reason, said one of the protagonists, leaks in the press at the end however a bursting of the Board of Directors. Indeed, the now former President of the Board, Serge Weinberg, including "the elegance" behaviour is unanimously hailed, as well as five other members, namely, Augustin de Romanet, Director General of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Baudouin Prot, CEO of BNP Paribas, Isabelle Bouillot, Aldo Cardoso, and sir Roderic Lyne, these last three quality of independent directors, resigned. Spectacular, this initiative has led the other administrators to designate Gilles Pélisson as its new President in the wake.

Divergence of views

The admission of the protagonists, the conflict is not, in the State of disagreement on the strategy of the group but a frank divergence of views on its governance: the who are opposed to the reduction of the number of Directors and relitigation of the dissociation of the functions of Chairman of the Board and Managing Director. On the first point, Accor said in a statement that "it is common ground" that the new Council "will be limited, with 13 members at most" and that "he respect the recommendations of the Afep-Medef in the matter of balance between dependent and independent directors". Before even his burst, the Board of Accor formally included 15 members out of a total of 17, two of them resigned for personal reasons, including Philippe Camus, the latter having taken in September the non-executive chair of the Board of Alcatel-Lucent.

This new governance has the favour of the Colony Capital-Eurazeo duo, now shareholder of reference with concert 30.1 of the capital today. But she doubts completely the bel developed scheduling in place beginning 2006 to put an end to the crisis relating to the replacement of Jean-Marc Espalioux, then President of the Executive Board (read below). "It is a step backwards governance", observed as yesterday one of the six directors who resigned. Another spoke of the need to launch a takeover bid on the part of the Colony-Eurazeo concert, who always defended to take control of the Accor Group.

However, Colony-Eurazeo has advocated a governance adapted to a context of crisis and has ultimately benefited from the support of other administrators. "An extraordinary period, should have a functioning tightened for faster decision making", said one of the supporters of this new order, while paying tribute to Serge Weinberg, stressed the uselessness of the "third man", as heard non-Executive President, in view of the existence of a reference shareholder, namely the Colony-Eurazeo duo. With a little more than 8 of the capital, the Caisse des Dépôts, Accor historical shareholder, remains today still an investor result but with any other role, hence the complexity of its position. If its Director General has resigned, his second representative, Alain Quinet, Director of finance and strategy of the CDC, did not abandon his wheelchair. Especially, the Caisse des Dépôts has no intention to leave the capital of the hotel group and services.

Finally, if Gilles Pélisson, who has totally and perfectly applied strategy validated by the Board of Directors for three years, appears today as having full powers, should more that never be effective. If the time is the Union with the reference shareholder, it will not release its pressure, the current friendly, for "booster" stock market. Gilles Pélisson will no doubt questioned on the subject this morning at the presentation of the annual accounts 2008 of the Accor Group.