Brazilian meat giant BRF has confirmed the appointment of Pedro Pullen Parente to fill the vacant seat of global chief executive and at the same time has created a new chief operating officer role.
Lorival Nogueira will become COO reporting to Parente, the former head of state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras, in appointments approved by the company’s board of directors.
In April, Parente was elected as chairman of BRF’s newly-assigned board, the same month that then CEO José Aurélio Drummond Jr. resigned. Parente will now hold the dual roles of chairman and chief executive.
However, Parente’s appointment looks set to be temporary, with BRF saying in a statement that he will occupy the CEO and chairman seats initially for 180 days, before requesting an extension under listing regulations for another year.
”Parente will prioritise the strategic and financial planning process, will be dedicated, directly, to the preparation of his successor, and will lead the company’s reorganisation, specially the fulfilment of the key positions and issues related to its governance,” the statement read.
A temporary CEO appointment may risk unnerving investors in what has generally been a loss-making business of late, and one implicated in a recent corruption scandal in Brazil. The company was also among the firms that were barred from exporting chicken to the European Union in April due to what the EC said were “deficiencies detected in the Brazilian official control system”.
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By GlobalDataAnd Parente’s appointment is also still subject to clearance from the Public Ethics Commission of the Presidency of the Republic in case of conflicts of interest with his previous position at Petrobras.
