Radu Merica, the former chairman of CNAB, the company that manages Bucharest’s two airports Henri Coanda (Otopeni) and Aurel Vlaicu (Baneasa), who has been recently replaced with his entire team after only one year on the job, says what is happening with the professional management project is tragic.
“I’ve started to remember why I left Romania in 1992. What is happening at the state-owned companies is rather tragic. The Transport Ministry made a mockery of what professional management means,” said Radu Merica, who ran the board of directors of CNAB in April 2013-May 2014.
CNAB’s revenues stand at about EUR140 million.
He added that while in office he found some contracts signed for four to five times the market prices.
The Transport Ministry run by Dan Sova did not explain why the replacement of the first team of private sector managers at CNAB or what exactly made those recently appointed to the board of directors suitable candidates for their new positions.
The new chairman of the CNAB board is Dan Andrei, a former aviation director with the ministry. He replaced Radu Merica.
The position of interim chief executive went to Sorinel Ciobanu, former head of the Baneasa and Otopeni airports, who was once investigated by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) for abuse of office. The Transport Ministry did not answer ZF’s questions about what exactly made Sorinel Ciobanu a suitable candidate for the job.
Fondul Proprietatea, minority shareholder of CNAB, said in a statement that the replacement was not fully compliant with the law.
“(…) They could have replaced us legally. Their action was prepared in advance. First they sent the internal investigation department, which found some problems and then sent the Police,” Radu Merica said. “I didn’t image something like that was possible. Them committing so many breaches of the law. A year ago PwC and George Butunoiu who recruited us showed us we could work under the law without interference from the government. We believed in the project. I have no logical explanation about what happened. I suppose political interests are high.”
Oana Ciornei, managing partner of executive search firm Amrop, says that the elements taken into account when recruiting members for boards of directors at private companies are efficiency, knowledge about the industry and an executive position held in that industry for several years.
“An important element is reputation, any person with a shadow of a doubt about their business ethics should not be considered,” she added.
What is happening at the national airline Tarom or CNAB is ‘shocking’ for the experts recruiting managers for private companies.
Tarom is now at its fourth wave of changes at the top.
“It’s a shock to me to see how these changes at state-owned companies are made. The stability of the board of directors is very important for a company,” says Sorin Roibu, partner with executive search firm Arthur Hunt.
He says that multinationals only make such changes under exceptional circumstances and when they do they have good reason for them, not ‘calls from the party”.
“I haven’t heard of such board of directors changes in France, where our company works with state-run companies, of such instability as in the state-owned companies in Romania,” he added.
The “Private sector CEO for state-owned companies” project was a project the government committed to implement before the International Monetary Fund.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)