Kerekes fails to get seat on Meyer Burger board

A “clear majority” of shareholders of Meyer Burger Technology AG (SWX:MBTN) voted against the election of Mark Kerekes as member of the board at the extraordinary shareholders’ meeting (ESM) on Wednesday, the Swiss solar industry supplier said the same day.

The ESM was held at the request of a shareholder group around Sentis Capital PCC, whose main goal for the meeting was for Kerekes, a co-managing director and board member of Sentis, to join the Meyer Burger board. Sentis is a unit of Elbogross SA, which in turn is wholly owned by Russian businessman Petr Kondrashev.

“I trust that Sentis will respect this shareholder decision and refrain from further public attacks on the company and its corporate bodies. I call on Sentis to work constructively with us on the corporate turnaround we have embarked upon,” said Remo Lütolf, chairman of the board of Meyer Burger.

As part of a strategic realignment, the company is withdrawing from the low-margin bulk business based on PERC technology and focusing its efforts on the marketing of Meyer Burger’s proprietary heterojunction/SmartWire technology. This realignment is closely associated with CEO Hans Braendle, who previously announced that he would resign if a Sentis representative was elected to the board of directors.

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