Codere has announced it has replaced members of the company’s founding family as chairman and CEO.
Grupo Codere’s board of directors issued a statement saying Norman Sorensen Valdez has been appointed its non-executive chairman and Vicente Di Loreto has been made CEO. The company said the moves were needed as “new leadership is necessary in the company to drive profitable growth and maximize shareholder value.”
Codere’s former chairman José Antonio Martínez Sampedro and former VP Luis Javier Martínez Sampedro have been ousted, according to reports, but will retain their seats on Codere’s board. Their family founded the company in 1980.
According to reports, the removals of the Martínez Sampedro family was asked for by the private equity funds that bailed out Codere in 2013 after the company found itself more than one billion euros in debt.
El Confidencial reported that the family, which holds an about 18 percent stake in the company, plans to challenge the changes at Codere’s next shareholders’ meeting. The family believes the removals violates the shareholders’ agreement.
Di Loreto served as COO of Codere’s Latin American operations until the launch of his gaming consultancy G3M Partners in 2011. Di Loreto said in a press release that the company would focus on “increasing resources and efforts in online markets, enhancing the integration between them and enriching the value proposition for our customers.”
