Emmanuel Macron proposed the name of the current financial director of Groupe ADP to replace Augustin de Romanet. A choice which will have to be validated by Parliament.
President Emmanuel Macron wishes to appoint the current financial director of Groupe ADP, Philippe Pascal, to the position of CEO, replacing Augustin de Romanet, the Élysée announced on Monday.
The National Assembly and the Senate will have to validate his candidacy to head the manager of the Paris airports of Charles-de-Gaulle, Orly and Le Bourget, 50.6% owned by the State.
This choice was anticipated: the economic investigation site L'Informé already affirmed, at the beginning of January, that an agreement had been reached between the Elysée and Matignon on the name of Philippe Pascal. Two other candidates had come forward, according to the site: the former financial director of Veolia Claude Laruelle and the CEO of TechnicAtome Loïc Rocard.
Philippe Pascal, 53, is a senior civil servant specializing in taxation, having climbed the ranks within the Paris airport manager for 12 years. He has held his current position since 2016, alongside Augustin de Romanet and former general manager Edward Arkwright, who became general manager of the real estate developer Altarea at the beginning of January.
-26 airport facilities
Last March, the government announced that Augustin de Romanet, who said he was “available” for a new mandate, would be retained in his position until the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris but not renewed beyond that. Augustin de Romanet, 63, then agreed to extend his own interim by “a few days” at the start of 2025 until a successor is found, according to a source close to the company with 28,000 employees and 336 million passengers welcomed in 2023 .
Philippe Pascal will be heard by both houses of Parliament. His appointment must finally be approved by the Council of Ministers. ADP, after having long been the darling of the stock market thanks to its very strong profitability, suffered a hard blow with the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, only returning to profits in 2022 after two years of losses which left him in debt.
Mentioned in 2019, privatization has not been on the agenda since this crisis. The ADP share price has not recovered from the pandemic, currently trading at around 110 euros compared to 175 at the start of 2020, while the airline sector faces significant decarbonization investments. Under MM. Graff then Romanet, ADP developed its holdings and concessions abroad, today directly or indirectly managing 26 airport installations, particularly in Turkey and India, two dynamic markets.
