Sandvik (STO: SAND) chief executive officer, Bjorn Rosengren, is leaving the Swedish mining equipment maker in November to lead Swiss engineering giant ABB (SWX: ABBN), which is in the midst of a major overhaul that would leave it more focused on robotics and automation.
Rosengren (60), spent the last four years at Sandvik’s helm implementing a plan to decentralize it in order to make it more efficient and flexible. He will assume the new top post at ABB in February, taking over from chairman Peter Voser, who has been acting as interim CEO since Ulrich Spiesshofer abruptly stepped down in April amid pressure from major investors.
During Rosengren’s tenure, Sandvik shares gained more than 70%.
ABB has locked Rosengren into a
minimum five-year contract, the company said. Prior to his Sandvik time, he headed
Wartsila Corporation, which makes power systems for the marine and power
generation markets.
The Swiss engineer spent his
formative years at Atlas Copco, a mining solutions provider known by its culture
of manager responsibility and asset-light production, which has been emulated
at other Nordic companies.
Activist investor Cevian Capital, ABB’s
second largest shareholder with a 5.3% stake, said it fully supported the
appointment of Rosengren. The investment firm had been critical of ABB’s
complicated structure and had campaigned for a separation of its power grids division,
which is now being sold to Hitachi Ltd. for about $6.4 billion.
Sandvik chairman, Johan Molin, said the company would
embark on the hunt for a new CEO.