The new board of Telecom Italia elected a former electronics industry executive as chairman, amid renewed turbulence at Europe's fifth largest telecoms operator after AT&T backed out of the race to buy a stake in the controlling shareholder, an Associated Press report said, quoting Italian news agencies.
'We are ready to continue our work,' the ANSA news agencies quoted the new chairman, Pasquale Pistorio as saying after the meeting. 'I have already been on the board of Telecom for three years. It's a great company, economically sound and very strong technologically,' Pistorio was quoted as saying.
Company officials had no immediate comment on the reports but would issue a statement later, the Associated Press report added.
Pistorio, who has the backing of Telecom Italia's main shareholder, Olimpia, is billed as an industry insider with the technical knowledge to steer the company through evolving technologies, the report said.
Pistorio, an electrical engineer, formerly worked at Motorola and was the CEO of the SGS Group, Italy's only microelectronics group, which he is credited with turning around, the report further said.