WARSAW (Reuters) – The head of state-controlled Polish refiner Orlen on Thursday said he did not expect to be in his job for much longer after a supervisory board meeting later in the day.
A shareholder meeting has been called for Feb.
6 to make changes to the supervisory board at the request of Poland’s new pro-European coalition government, which sees Orlen as a symbol of efforts by the previous administration to use state-controlled firms for political purposes.
“Supervisory board meets today, I’ve put myself at their disposal and I think the matter will be decided today,” Daniel Obajtek told Radio Zet.
“I can’t imagine being CEO after Feb. 6.”
Last month, prosecutors launched an investigation into Orlen’s fuel pricing policies ahead of Oct. 15 elections. Orlen and Obajtek deny any wrongdoing.
Prosecutors are also investigating Orlen’s acquisition of smaller rival Lotos in 2022 and resulting sale of assets to meet EU antitrust rules.
Orlen says the merger was a transparent process supervised and controlled by a number of institutions.
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki, Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Mark Potter and David Goodman)
