French reinsurer Scor has dumped its Chairman/CEO, Jacques Blondeau, and replaced him with a high-profile industry bureaucrat. Mr Blondeau, who ran the company for eight years, is the latest of a string of CEOs to suffer the fury of shareholders.

Denis Kessler, Chairman of the Fédération Française des Sociétés d’Assurances and Vice-Chairman of the French Business Confederation, has already taken over.

While Scor has declined to give reasons for Mr Blondeau’s departure, the company’s recent woeful profit results for the past year are believed to have forced him to quit. Most insurers and reinsurers have recorded big profit drops thanks to falling equity prices. They have also become caught up in the equity spiral, with their own companies’ share prices also taking a beating. In the past year Scor has twice had to strengthen its reserves, which hasn’t impressed shareholders.

One of Mr Blondeau’s last acts before clearing his desk was to announce a full-year projected loss of about $440 million. The next day Scor announced a $442 million rights issue and the appointment of Mr Kessler.