SWEDEN - Stockholm-based Carnegie bank has elected Anders Fällman - chief executive of Carnegie shareholder Invik - as its new chairman, despite recent calls for an independent chairman to see the bank through its current troubles.

The bank elected Fällman and four other new members to its board - Jan Kvarnström, Björn Andersson, Catharina Lagerstam and Patrick Tigerschiöld - at its extraordinary general meeting yesterday. At the same time, Mai-Lill Ibsen was re-elected and Kvarnström was elected deputy chairman.

Ossian Ekdahl, head of corporate governance at Swedish buffer fund AP1 and Mats Lagerkvist, chief executive of Swedbank Robur, left Carnegie's nomination committee last month, arguing in its current situation the bank needed an independent chairman.

This was necessary to ensure the board saw to the needs of all shareholders, and did not have a special agenda, Ekdahl explained at the time.

But Invik, which is Carnegie's largest shareholder with around 10% of its stock, was against this idea, he said.

In late September, Sweden's financial regulator Finansinspektionen (FI) fined Carnegie the maximum financial penalty of SEK 50m (€5.36m), ordered it to replace its chief executive and call an EGM to elect new members to the board of directors.

It found "serious deficiencies" in the bank's governance and control of its operations and said there was enough reason to revoke the bank's licence, but opted instead to issue a warning.

The regulator's censure followed a scandal in May in which three employees were found to have inflated profits at the firm.

Since Carnegie's chief executive Stig Wilhelmson resigned from the bank in September, Anders Onarheim has been acting CEO.
 
Yesterday's EGM also decided to instruct the board to take a closer look at how the "Share Programme 2008" should be adjusted. Carnegie shareholder Folksam had proposed the meeting reconsider a resolution passed by the 2007 AGM about the establishment of a long-term, performance-based, incentive programme for 2008.

The meeting also decided to adopt a new procedure for the appointment of the Nomination Committee

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