Alstom exec, former Elf CEO Jaffre dies at 62

Alstom SA Executive Vice-President Philippe Jaffre died last week at the age of 62, the company announced on Sunday.

As chief financial officer between 2002 and 2004, Jaffre engineered Alstom's 4.4 billion-euro bailout with the French state and banks in 2004, when the world's biggest maker of power plants neared bankruptcy.

Jaffre had distanced himself from daily operations in recent years, settling in Brussels, Belgium, with his family, and focusing on the group's relations with the European Commission.

He was suffering from pancreatic cancer, said the company's statement.

"When the group was in a critical situation in 2003 and 2004, Philippe Jaffre brought a vision, expertise and availability which contributed decisively to defining and implementing the solutions which allowed the company to be saved," Alstom Chief Executive Officer Patrick Kron said in an e-mailed statement on Sunday.

Jaffre, a graduate of France's elite administration school Ecole Nationale d'Administration, or ENA, began his career as a Finance Ministry civil servant.

Credit Agricole

He held several banking positions, including that of chief executive of France's biggest retail bank, Credit Agricole, between 1988 and 1993.

In 1993, he took over as chairman and CEO of French oil company Elf Aquitaine, failing to fend off a takeover bid by French rival TotalFina in 1999.

The merged company later became Total SA.

Jaffre caused public outcry when he left Elf Aquitaine with a package of stock options worth an estimated 30 million euros.

Bloomberg News

(China Daily 09/11/2007 page16)