YPF's Gonzalez Said to Emerge as Leading Interim CEO Candidate

YPF SA Chief Financial Officer Daniel Gonzalez Casartelli is leading a shortlist of candidates to become interim chief executive officer of Argentina’s largest company, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

Gonzalez, a former executive with Bank of America Corp., is at the top of a list that includes Jesus Grande and Carlos Alfonsi, said the people, who asked not to be named because the decision still needs to be confirmed by Argentine President Mauricio Macri. The two other candidates currently lead YPF’s exploration and production division and its refining and Marketing units, respectively.

Macri’s administration is seeking new leadership for the oil company, which was nationalized in 2012. Current Chairman and CEO Miguel Galuccio will step down from both roles at a shareholder meeting in April, the company said earlier this month. The government is splitting the roles of CEO and chairman at the company, which reported a 1.7 billion-peso ($115 million) net loss for the fourth quarter, it’s first in at least a decade.

If approved by the president, Gonzalez, 46, will be appointed interim CEO while the company finishes a 90-day recruiting effort to find a permanent replacement. He is expected to seek the permanent CEO role, the people said.

Gonzalez declined to comment in an e-mail. YPF and the Energy and Mining Ministry also declined to comment.

Gonzalez, a former board member of Pegasus Venture Capital, has the support of cabinet Secretary Mario Quintana, the founder and CEO of Pegasus, said two of the people. Gonzalez holds a degree in business administration from the Argentine Catholic University and is an alumnus of Cardinal Newman high school in Buenos Aires, the same school that Macri and Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay attended.

Guillermo Pereyra, a oil-worker union leader and senator from the region that holds YPF’s largest shale deposit, has pushed for Macri to appoint a CEO with industry knowledge, not a finance expert.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pablo Gonzalez in Buenos Aires at pgonzalez49@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net, Tina Davis, Will Wade

By: Pablo Gonzalez

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