The Government strengthens its power in Indra with the departure of the until now key CEO,

Cristina Ruiz

, and has unleashed a new drop in the price at the start of the session this Friday.

The company chaired by

Marc Murtra

communicated on Thursday night to the National Securities Market Commission the decision to "extinguish by common agreement with the CEO the contract for the provision of executive services that linked the parties."

Ruiz was in charge of the technological area, including Indra Soluciones Tecnologías de la Información, SLU (Minsait), which represents a total of two thirds of Indra's business and more than half of its profits.

After his departure was made public, Indra has started the session with falls of up to 3%, which are added to all those produced since the dismissal last year of the previous president,

Fernando Abril-Martorell

, and the departure of other executives and shareholders before the growing weight of the Government in the technology company.

It is worth 1,600 million on the stock market and has not yet recovered pre-pandemic levels.

Sources familiar with Ruiz's departure explain to this newspaper the weariness of this executive due to the constant curbing of the State Company of Industrial Participations (Sepi) to projects that she considered strategic.

Sepi holds 19% of the capital and is the largest shareholder, but does not dominate the board of directors, which maintains a majority of independent directors in compliance with the good governance code for listed companies.

That majority could not prevent the Government from relieving Abril-Martorell, respected by investors, by Murtra last May, but yes, in a highly unusual move in Spain, they stripped the new president of executive powers and mounted a shield to try to avoid the politicization of the company with the appointment of two CEOs: Ruiz and

Ignacio Mataix

.

Ruiz has already been removed from the website and Mataix remains, until now responsible for the defense area, as the only CEO.

He has woven a better relationship with Murtra than Ruiz.

Luis Abril

is appointed as her replacement

, a respected professional in the company, who is not granted the same rank of CEO, but does join the board of directors as executive director.

Sepi hopes to gain even more power when it makes its announcement last year to acquire an additional 10% of shares in Indra, and in cooperation with the government, the Basque defense company Sapa has also entered with a 5% stake, although.

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