Areva shareholders vote in new CEO, chairman

PARIS (Reuters) - Areva (AREVA.PA) shareholders approved the nomination of Philippe Knoche and Philippe Varin as board members of the French state-owned nuclear group, ahead of their respective appointment as chief executive and chairman of the board later on Thursday.

An extraordinary shareholders meeting also approved a new governance structure that replaces Areva's outgoing supervisory board with a new executive board that will be chaired by Varin, the former head of car maker Peugeot.

The new board was due to meet in the afternoon to formally appoint Varin as chairman and Knoche as chief executive, an Areva spokesman said.

The two men made no statement on Thursday, but will lay out a new strategy for the group at the presentation of 2014 earnings on March 4, the spokesman added.

Knoche, who joined Areva in 2000 and was appointed chief operating officer in 2009, told French parliament late last year Areva needs to focus on costs, review its strategy and get out of its "vicious cycle of excessive debt".

In November, the 87 percent state-owned group issued a third profit warning in four months and dropped its 2015-16 financial targets, blaming delays to a Finnish reactor, the slow restart of Japan's reactors and a lacklustre nuclear market globally.

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Areva's debt to junk status following the warning.

The new governance structure was put in place by the government, frustrated by a string of multibillion euro losses on the Finnish reactor project and an African uranium mine investment.

Knoche and Varin face difficult choices to restore Areva's financial health.

With access to financial markets limited by Areva's non-investment grade status and the state not keen to inject new capital, the new management team will have to sell assets, although the firm does not have many major non-core units other than its loss-making offshore wind activity.

One possibility would be to invite outside investors, possibly Chinese, into its uranium mining operations. Varin and Knoche could also consider a split of the integrated nuclear group, which mines uranium, sells and recycles nuclear fuel and builds nuclear reactors.

France's top public auditor has criticized the company's one-stop-shop business model and questioned the synergies between its different activities.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq, Editing by Dominique Vidalon and Vincent Baby)