El Corte Inglés Council Will Address the Relief of Four of Its Ten Directors | companies

The Board of Directors of El Corte Inglés, meeting today as usual, confirmed the date of Sunday, August 26, at 11:30, for the holding of its general meeting of shareholders. An appointment which, for various reasons, will have a particular relevance compared to those of the last years.

For the first time, shareholders will have the opportunity to share their feelings about the open power struggle in the country's largest distribution group. In recent months, and this has already led to a legal confrontation between his former president, Dimas Gimeno, and the company. Gimeno himself will achieve one of the goals that he set during the confrontation with his cousins, Marta and Cristina Álvarez Guil, owners of 15% of the group's shares, and the favor of the Ramón Areces Foundation, first shareholder: to reach the general meeting of shareholders retaining their seat on the board of directors.

Although you can lose it at this same meeting. As explained in the bylaws of El Corte Inglés, only the board has the power to cease and appoint directors, provided that this is reflected in its agenda.
And so it is scheduled for the meeting of August 26th. In the seventh item of the agenda approved yesterday by the board appears the "termination and appointment of directors", a point that was not added for the sole purpose of addressing the Future of Dimas Gimeno, but whose only inclusion threatens his future in

The main reason is that up to three directors of the company have exhausted their mandate in the last month. Dimas Gimeno adds that the shareholders' meeting of El Corte Inglés should focus on the future of four of its ten directors, nearly half of the current board of directors.
In two of these four cases, there are historical figures in the heart of El Corte Inglés, and to which the family war of recent months has also splashed to a greater or lesser extent. Above all, Florencio Lasaga, president of the Ramón Areces Foundation, linked to El Corte Inglés since the fifties, and advisor of the same since 1969. Lasaga was one of the great allies of Marta and Cristina Álvarez in their confrontation with Dimas Gimeno, with another history that also ends mandate, Carlos Martínez Echavarría. Both are over 80, at the time when El Corte Inglés wants to adapt its corporate governance to that of listed companies, where the presence of independent directors reaches half. At present, the only independent director is Manuel Pizarro.

The other director who ends the term is Paloma García Peña, representative of Cartera Mancor, a company that holds 7% of the capital. All, although they convey their intention to continue to sit on the board, must receive shareholder approval, for which a simple majority will be used.