Club Med, the Chinese-owned French travel operator, said on Monday it has named a former executive in the Carrefour supermarket group to replace its head and chairman Henri Giscard d’Estaing, who was fired last week.
Stephane Maquaire, 51, who until this month led Carrefour’s operations in Brazil, will take up his position as CEO and chairman “with immediate effect”, the company said in a statement.
Giscard d’Estaing — the 68-year-old son of former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing — ran Club Med for the past 22 years, repositioning the brand as an upmarket, family-oriented operator of resorts.
On July 16, Giscard d’Estaing announced that Club Med’s Chinese owners, the conglomerate Fosun, had without warning replaced him as chairman.
The change came against a backdrop of mounting tensions between Giscard d’Estaing and Fosun over the ousted chairman’s demand to have Club Med relisted on the Paris stock exchange.
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© Agence France-Presse
