Areva to name CEO replacement

PARIS – French nuclear group Areva will announce the replacement of Chief Executive Anne Lauvergeon as early as today, La Tribune reported in an advance copy of the front page of its edition yesterday.

The paper said French President Nicolas Sarkozy had made the decision not to renew Lauvergeon’s mandate – which ends this month – at the state-controlled group.Discussions over her replacement were in the final stages and the front-runner to replace her was Luc Oursel, an internal candidate, La Tribune said.A spokeswoman for Areva declined to comment, and a member of the supervisory board said he had not been informed about the possible nomination.The Elysee presidential palace refused to confirm or deny the information, declining to comment.The paper did not say where it got the information. Oursel is a member of Areva’s executive board and chief operating officer in charge of international, marketing and projects.Lauvergeon has come under fire in recent years due to cost overruns at an Areva-built plant in Finland and the loss of a US$40 billion contract in Abu Dhabi to a South Korean consortium.Lauvergeon has also clashed with Henri Proglio, the chief executive of EDF, which owns a stake in Areva.She was appointed head of the state-owned French nuclear reactor maker in 2001 when it was created from the merger of state-owned uranium mining and enrichment firm Cogema and reactor maker Framatome.- Nampa-Reuters