Belgian Patrick De Maeseneire is set to become Swiss chocolate manufacturer Barry Callebaut‘s new chairman, succeeding Andreas Jacobs who will leave the board in December.
CEO from 2002 to 2009
Shareholders still have to approve Patrick De Maeseneire as the new chairman on 7 December, but as he is already general manager of Jacobs Holding, the Swiss private equity firm that company has a majority stake in Barry Callebaut, the appointment seems a mere formality.
De Maeseneire, also Jacobs Holding’s representative on Barry Callebaut’s board, was already the chocolate giant’s CEO from 2002 until 2009. Currently, the company manufactures about a quarter of the world’s chocolate.
The Belgian was proposed as the new chairman when the full-year results were published, in which the Swiss company ended its broken fiscal year with a higher turnover but a lower profit. Turnover grew 7 % to 6.68 billion Swiss francs (6.2 billion euro), while volume grew 2.2 % to 1.8 million tons. However, profit dropped 8.7 % to 219 million Swiss francs (about 200 million euro). The company points towards the difficult conditions in the cocoa market, its restructuring cost and exchange rate fluctuations.
