Finland strengthens control over Uniper

Finnish state utility Fortum has made further changes to the management team at German Uniper, in order to "accelerate strategy execution across the group and following the management board changes at Uniper," it said April 13. In late March it announced the departure of Uniper's CEO and CFO with immediate effect.

The steps include a "more diverse and pan-European leadership team" that is intended to bring more integrated business operations and faster value creation," it said.

"With the recent appointments made at both Fortum and Uniper, we are increasing diversity in the group’s leadership and leveraging the talent we have among our ranks. Going forward, my ambition is that the leadership teams would work in a more integrated way to ensure efficient decision-making in both companies and faster value creation across the group,” said Fortum CEO Markus Rauramo.

Further structures will be defined in order to "foster fast decision making, disciplined capital allocation, and asset rotation as well as shortened project realisation timeframes while considering the group-wide perspective and securing the best interest of both companies.

"As a first step, a group investment forum, comprising relevant executives from both companies, will co-ordinate growth and maintenance investments, divestments, and major acquisitions. All decisions with respect to investment or divestment activities will be made under the established governance policies of the respective companies," it said.

Uniper simultaneously announced that Fabienne Twelemann, who has been with Uniper for over 15 years. has become the new head of corporate communication and government relations, replacing Luis Ramos.