By Dominique Vidalon and Marcel Michelson
PARIS, Sept 27 ( Reuters ) - Henri Proglio, named boss of
French state-owned power company EDF
As head of the world's largest utility, with a market value of 70.9 billion euros ($104.1 billion), he will also have to juggle the state's conflicting demands as both shareholder and regulator.
Last but not least, good relations with trade unions will be important -- France has a near 85 percent stake in EDF and the former monopoly operator's labour unions still pack a punch even as the company modernises and expands internationally.
Proglio, 60 and a widower with two children, had spent his
entire career at the water and waste management group which
became Veolia
He helped transform Veolia from a sleepy municipal utility, then Compagnie Generale des Eaux (CGE), into the world's biggest water company with a market value of 13 billion euros and sales of 36 billion.
CGE became media group Vivendi during the stormy tenure of Jean-Marie Messier. Industry observers say Proglio came into his own during that time, resisting Messier's ideas to dismantle the water business to fund his media expansion dreams.
Vivendi Water was eventually split off to become Veolia and Proglio became chairman in 2003.
In 2004, Proglio was offered the top job at EDF but turned it down. Some observers said he was reluctant to leave Veolia, others that did not want to take the job from his friend, Francois Roussely, then head of EDF.
EDF and Veolia have a joint venture for energy services called Dalkia and Proglio already sat on the EDF supervisory board.
FOUQUET'S AND L'HUMANITE
Born in 1949 in Antibes, southern France, Proglio has a twin brother Rene who is managing director of Morgan Stanley France.
"Our parents sold fruit and vegetables in Antibes. Getting into HEC was our first Parisian experience. With our southern accent, we came straight from a Pagnol novel," Rene Proglio told French magazine l'Expansion in a March 2009 interview, referring to Marcel Pagnol novels set in Marseilles.
Proglio has made training a priority of Veolia's social policy, with the Campus Veolia training center accomodating 610 apprentices and 14,000 traineess each year.
He was one of the few CAC-40 bosses to attend the Fete de l'Humanite this year, the annual bash of the French Communist newspaper.
A friend of former French President Jacques Chirac, Proglio is also close to President Nicolas Sarkozy and was among guests at a dinner at Fouquet's restaurant on the Champs Elysees where Sarkozy and friends celebrated his election win in 2007.
Proglio's track record at the helm of Veolia was mixed.
Recently, he has been busy rebuilding investor confidence after two profit warnings, a mounting debt pile, an unexpected management reshuffle and a 65 percent share slide in 2008.
"He did many acquisitions and not really the divestments that were needed, the cleaning up that was expected," an industry source said, adding that tackling debt and expansion abroad were the very issues Proglio will need to adress at EDF.
In a March interview with Reuters, Proglio, who can be short-tempered, joked that efforts to inform analysts about group strategy sometimes made him feel he was "evangelising savages". (Editing by David Holmes) ($1 = 0.6810 euro)