New change at the top of Grifols: Anne-Catherine Berner replaces Glanzmann as president

BarcelonaYet another change at the top of Grifols. Thomas Glanzmann, the executive who landed at the helm of Grifols to lead the pharmaceutical company for two years – a period in which he has had to deal with the post-Covid recovery, the debt crisis and the attack by the Gotham hedge fund – will not continue in his position as non-executive chairman of the company – he left the 2nd position – and left the 2nd position. His position will be taken by Anne-Catherine Berner, current independent director, who will succeed him as non-executive chairman after the next general meeting.

Glanzmann took over as CEO in February 2023, just days after the company began aMajor cost reduction plan. He succeeded the then executive president of Grifols, Steven F. Mayer, the first person outside the founding family to achieve the presidency and who was above the two co-CEOs, Raimon Grífols Roura and Víctor Grífols Deu, brother and son of the president who left 0. A few months later, in May 2023, Glanzmannreached the top of the companyRaimon Grífols Roura and Víctor Grífols Diez are particularly relevant as CEOs. He was CEO until April 2024 and executive chairman until last September, when Grifols, ahead of the two-year period planned, announced that Glanzmann was completely abandoning his executive functions, which were left in the hands of Nacho Abia, who had replaced him as CEO in April.

"It has been an honour and a privilege for me to chair the board of directors and serve as CEO of this great 115-year-old company, especially in recent times, in which we have witnessed great challenges and transformations," Glanzmann said in a statement on Tuesday. One of the biggest challenges that this executive has had to face has been the period of turbulence that the company has experienced, aggravated by the attack by Gotham, the New York hedge fund that in January accused the Catalan company of manipulating results and debt. The offensive came at an already complicated time for Grifols, with a falling share price due to the pandemic - when it had to close the plasma collection centres - and the execution of a plan to reduce costs that began shortly before Glanzmann himself assumed the executive presidency in February 202 to reduce its high debt.

In fact, the last great chapter that Glanzmann experienced as executive president was the process of a public takeover bid (OPA) for the Catalan pharmaceutical company, which became known in July when the family and the Canadian fund Brookfield made public an agreement to study the possibility of making a takeover bid for the entire share capital. The operation, which would serve to avoid stock market crises such as the one caused by Gotham this 2024, derailed in November after the fund decided to abandon the negotiation due to disagreements in the valuation of the Catalan multinational blood derivatives company.