Colt Telecom has announced that Rakesh Bhasin will be appointed President and Chief Executive, succeeding Jean-Yves Charlier. The change will take effect following the next regularly scheduled meeting of the Board on 13 December 2006.
The company says that ‘having successfully completed his assignment at Colt, Mr. Charlier, the current President and Chief Executive, will be returning to Fidelity.’
Under Charlier’s leadership, Colt has accelerated its transition to a data and managed services company and strengthened its position as a business. Colt’s financial performance has improved, moving to positive free cash flow and profitability for the first time. During this time the company also improved its balance sheet by successfully raising £300m new equity earlier in the year whilst reorganising to a Luxembourg holding structure and deregistering from NASDAQ.
Mr. Bhasin is being seconded to Colt from Fidelity, where he is presently a Group Managing Director.