BRUSSELS – A group of rebel Eurotunnel shareholders on Wednesday won their battle to win control of the troubled channel tunnel operator.

Speaking after a key ballot on the company’s future, Eurotunnel’s current chairman Charles Mackay conceded defeat.

“We don’t have a majority of votes cast,” he told shareholders at the meeting in Villepinte near Paris.

Mackay’s defeat means the company will now be run by the rebel shareholders, whose movement has been headed by French financier and would-be politician Nicolas Miguet.

Miguet wants to re-structure Eurotunnel’s massive debt and overhaul the way the firm is run.

But the company managers who were ousted on Wednesday have said consistently that Miguet and his followers have no clear plans for the company and that small shareholders would pay the price if the rebels gained control of the firm.

[Copyright Expatica News 2004]

Subject: Belgian news