Investors

FCC appoints Jarque as new chief executive

Former Mexican politician and development bank executive Carlos Jarque replaces the departing Juan Bejar at the helm of the Spanish developer.

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Carlos Jarque has taken the reins as chief executive officer of FCC, the Spanish developer which has been struggling to return to profitability and reduce its debt pile in recent years.

Jarque held a number of prominent political roles in Mexico, including Secretary of the country’s National Development Plan between 1995 and 2000, and Minister of Social Development, in which he oversaw a range of social programmes and housing initiatives.

He was recently the representative of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Europe where he drove investment and mobilization of resources between Europe and Latin America in areas such as water, energy and urban development. In his time there, the IDB moved its European headquarters from Paris to Madrid.

Since 2013, he has been executive director of corporate, government and international relations at America Movil, the Mexican telecommunications firm which is the largest private company in Latin America.

Jarque replaces Juan Bejar, a longstanding infrastructure veteran who was appointed in January 2013 to spearhead strategic initiatives including a €2.2 billion non-core asset disposal programme to cut the firm’s debt, refocusing the business on the environment and infrastructure, and building the firm internationally while downsizing in Spain.

The firm has struggled to achieve its objectives although there were positive signs in the first half of this year when it increased revenues by 6.5 percent compared with a year earlier and saw turnover at its international business increase 18.7 percent.

At the end of last year Carlos Slim, the Mexican businessman previously ranked as the wealthiest man in the world and currently estimated to be the fourth-richest, became the largest shareholder in FCC.

The firm was recently named preferred bidder for an energy waste plant project in Scotland, was part of the winning consortium in the UK’s Mersey Gateway Bridge project, and is currently working on metro rail projects in Peru and Saudi Arabia.