The FINANCIAL — Michael Treschow was appointed Chairman of the Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) Board of Directors March 27, 2002.
One of his first measures was to initiate and successfully accomplish a rights offering of SEK 30 billion (USD 4.3 billion). During his time as chairman, Treschow has also appointed and introduced two Chief Executive Officers; Carl-Henric Svanberg in 2003 and Hans Vestberg in 2009.
Ericsson has grown to a company with a turnover of SEK 206 billion in 2009 and 88,000 employees in more than 175 countries. The company has a solid market leading position with a market share of 40 percent for mobile infrastructure and a leading position in the fragmented services business with a 10 percent market share. Around the clock, every day of the year, 2 billion phone users are dependent on Ericsson's network support.
During Michael Treschow's chairmanship, Ericsson has strengthened its financial position and has played an active role in the industry consolidation. At year-end 2009, Ericsson had a net cash position of SEK 36.1 billion. Among the acquisitions during Michael Treschow's chairmanship, one finds Marconi (fixed infrastructure), Redback (Edge routers), Tandberg Television and Nortel's CDMA, LTE and GSM assets.
"Our founder, Lars-Magnus Ericsson, had a vision when he started the company in 1876 that communication is a basic human need. It has been an exciting journey to follow Ericsson and the industry during my years' in the company. When I joined, one billion people had access to a mobile phone. Today, more than five billion of the world's population has access to mobile communications", said Michael Treschow.
"Ericsson and the industry are now in the initial phase of rolling out mobile broadband. Today, less than 400 million people have mobile broadband and in 2015, Ericsson expects more than 3.4 billion people to have mobile broadband. It is an exciting future ahead of Ericsson, but taking into account its strong market and financial position, it is now the right time to hand over to a successor after nine years in this position," concluded Michael Treschow.
Michael Treschow was born in 1943. He is also Chairman of the Board of Unilever NV and Unilever PLC. Michael Treschow is also a Director of the Board of ABB and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. During 2004-2007, he was Chairman of Board of Directors' of Electrolux. 1997-2002 he was President and CEO of Electrolux and 1991-1997 President and CEO of Atlas Copco. He has a Master of Science from the Lund Institute of Technology.
The Nomination Committee, appointed by the largest owners, will propose a new Chairman of the Board to the Annual General Meeting 2011 or 2012.
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