After ten years at the helm of Ørsted's board of directors, Thomas Thune Andersen announced on February 7 that he did not wish to stand again as chairman at Ørsted's general meeting, which will take place on March 5.
Now the board of directors has identified the person the company wants to take over. The choice has fallen on the current deputy chairman for nine years, Lene Skole, who is currently the CEO of the Lundbeck Foundation. Ørsted writes this in a company announcement.
At the same time, Ørsted's interim group chief operating officer, Andrew Brown, is being nominated as deputy chairman. Andrew Brown has been in the energy industry his entire career and, before becoming interim CEO of Ørsted, was CEO of the Portuguese energy company Galp SA. He will step down as interim CEO of Ørsted at the end of March 2024.
- I have worked closely with Lene for many years, and in connection with my resignation, I am very pleased that the evaluation of the candidates has confirmed that Lene is the best choice for the position of Chairman of the Board and to implement the recently announced business plan together with the rest of the Board of Directors and Group Management, says Thomas Thune Andersen, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ørsted.
In addition to the nomination of Lene Skole and Andrew Brown for the chairmanship, the Ørsted Board of Directors recommends that Annica Bresky, Julia King, Peter Korsholm and Dieter Wemmer be re-elected as board members at the upcoming general meeting.
Has significantly cut investment plans
Ørsted presented its annual accounts for 2023 on February 7. It showed that the company had lost DKK 20.2 billion. DKK. This was primarily due to large billion-dollar write-downs on projects in the USA.
In connection with the annual accounts, Ørsted also presented a new business plan that is intended to get the company back on track. Among other things, it implies that Ørsted will cut its capital investments.
In June 2023, the energy giant announced that it would invest a total of DKK 475 billion by the end of 2030. However, in connection with the accounts, that plan was significantly scaled down to DKK 270 billion. Lene Skole is "fully dedicated" to implementing the plan, Ørsted states.
- It is a significantly scaled-down growth plan for the company. They will still play at the absolute top, but in scale Ørsted will be significantly smaller than what was previously planned, said equity analyst Jacob Pedersen in this connection.
The company also announced that it will cut between 600 and 800 positions globally. Not all of the cut positions will necessarily result in a layoff. But over the following months, 250 people will be laid off, it was said. Of these, around 60 percent will be in Denmark.
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