According to Pulso , Novator Partners decided to ask Chris Bannister to resign, just days after it was confirmed that they are seeking to enter a judicial reorganization process in the United States due to liquidity problems.
The problems do not stop within WOM. Now, after the announcement that the Chilean telecommunications company will benefit from the Bankruptcy Law in the United States, the news is added that would account for the removal of Chris Bannister, CEO of the company, known as “Uncle WOM”.
According to the Chilean newspaper La Tercera via the Pulso supplement, sources within the organization assured that Novator Partners, a private equity firm that controls 100% of WOM's shares, removed Bannister from his position as general manager.
With this, the renowned executive would have lasted just under six months in the position, to which he had returned on October 18 of last year.
Martín Vaca Narvaja, an Argentine member of the board of directors of the outsourcing and contact center company Apex America, arrives as a replacement, according to Pulso .
It should be noted that Bannister was in charge of launching WOM in 2015, after Novator bought Nextel. In this way, the renowned brand rose over the years until it became one of the largest telephone operators in Chile. Then, he resigned in 2018 to lead the company's arrival in the Colombian market.
However, after the resignation of the then general manager, Sebastián Precht, the executive was re-signed as CEO, making his return to WOM in October of last year.
Such arrival brought with it a series of cuts and layoffs even of senior company executives. In total there were (until December 2023) 120 people laid off, several of whom spent several years at the firm. All this was, according to Bannister, in order to “return WOM to its roots and its challenging mentality.”
However, the figure rose to 300 workers, or 10% of the workforce. Even, according to Pulso, WOM went from employing around 2,900 people in mid-2023 to around 2,100 today.
REORGANIZATION
The last episode in the financial crisis that the telco is experiencing was when it was confirmed that it was decided to file a request for voluntary reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Law in the United States.
According to Bannister himself, “this presentation will allow the company to work with creditors and other interested parties, access new sources of financing and have the necessary tools to support its long-term growth.”
And as they stated, such a process does not “involve the liquidation or bankruptcy of the company,” emphasizing that “the proximity of the bond maturity date, high interest rates and a difficult credit market, among other factors, exerted pressure on the liquidity of WOM Chile in the short term.”
