SEPI Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales

The appointments of the new Chairmen of IZAR, Agencia EFE, INFOINVEST, MERCASA, Hipódromo de la Zarzuela, HUNOSA, SEPIDES and SAECA have also been approved

The Board of Directors of the state-owned company Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) has approved the appointment of Mr. Federico Montero Hita as the Deputy Chairman of this company, as well as that of Mr. Juan Pedro Gómez Jaén as the Chief Executive Officer of IZAR, of Mr. Alex Grijelmo García as the Chairman of Agencia EFE, of Mr. Juan José Puerta Pascual as the Chairman of INFOINVEST, of Mr. Javier de Paz Mancho as the Chairman of MERCASA, of Mr. Gregorio Máñez Vindel as the Chairman of the company Hipódromo de la Zarzuela, of Mr. Juan Ramón García Secades as the Chairman of HUNOSA, of Mr. Mariano Casado González as the Chairman of SEPIDES and of Mr. Julián Arévalo Arias as the Chairman of SAECA.

The new Deputy Chairman of SEPI, Mr. Federico Montero Hita, is a graduate in Economics and comes from the company Área Investigación, S.A., where he had the job of Managing Director. Before, he was General Director of Planning and Budgets, General Director of the Budget and General Deputy Director of the Accounting Software Center belonging to the Ministry of Economics and the Treasury, besides being the Head of the Supporting Unit for the Anticorruption Prosecution Office of the Ministry of Justice and Manager of Administration and Economic Management of the Commission for the Telecommunications Market. He belongs to the Highest Level Corps of State Comptrollers and Auditors (Cuerpo Superior de Interventores y Auditores del Estado).

Mr. Juan Pedro Gómez Jaén is a Mining Engineer, DEA in Special Metallurgy and a PhD in Physical Sciences. Until his appointment as IZAR´s Chief Executive Officer, he was General Director of Celulosas de M´Bopicuá S.A., an affiliated company of the Ence Group. He has been also a consulting partner of Enerming Consulting, S.L., and Chairman in a number of state-owned companies, such as Potasas del Llobregat, S.A., Comercial de Potasas, S.A., Hunosa and Potasas de Subiza S.A., as well as Managing Director in charge of Operations in Presur.

Mr. Alex Grijelmo García comes to the Agencia EFE from Prisa Internacional, where he was the General Director in charge of Content. He was born in Burgos, is a graduate in Information Sciences, and has taught at the Journalism School of the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid-El País, besides being an habitual teacher at the Fundación para un Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, created and chaired by Mr. Gabriel García Márquez. He collaborates in the radio program ´No es un día cualquiera´ of the state-owned radio station RNE and in 1999 he was awarded the journalism national award Miguel Delibes.

Mr. Juan José Puerta Pascual, who assumes the Chairmanship of SEPI´s real-estate management company, INFOINVEST, is an Economist and he belongs to the corps of State Comptrollers and Auditors and to the Corps of Technicians in Information Systems and Technologies. He comes from Patrimonio Nacional (National Patrimony) where he was Delegate Comptroller. He has been General Director in charge of Budgets, General Director of Software for Budgets, General Deputy Director, Advising and Technical Director, in the Ministry of Economics and the Treasury.

Mr. Javier de Paz Macho, born in Valladolid in 1958, will be the Chairman of MERCASA, a company in which already had been Deputy Chairman. He comes from the Panrico Donuts Group, where he as Deputy to the Chairman and Director in charge of Corporate Strategy. He has been General Director of Inland Commerce, General Secretary of the consumers association Unión de Consumidores de España (UCE) and General Secretary of the Socialist Party Young Association. He has been also a Member of the Economics and Social Council (Consejo Económico y Social), a Member of the provident society Mutua de Accidentes de Zaragoza (MAZ) and of the Panrico Group.

Mr. Gregorio Máñez Vindel, a graduate in Economics and Trade, belongs to the Corps of State Comptrollers and Auditors. He becomes the Chairman of the company Hipódromo de la Zarzuela, S.A. from its current job of Delegate Comptroller in the State Council (Consejo de Estado). Before he was General Comptroller for the State Administration, General Director of the organism in charge of lotteries and betting Lottery (Organismo Nacional de Loterías y Apuestas del Estado), Manager of the National Lottery and General Deputy Director in the General Comptroller Office of the Social Security. He has been also Deputy Chairman of the European State Lotteries, General Secretary of the Latin American Lotteries Association and Chairman of the International State Lotteries Association.

Mr. Juan Ramón García Secades, a Mining Engineer who was born in Oviedo, will be HUNOSA´s new Chairman. He comes from the Managing Board of the Iberinsa Group of Companies and before that, he has been Minister in charge of Infrastructures and Territorial Policy in the government of the autonomous region of Asturias, Chairman of Minas de Riotinto, State Secretary of Defense, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Education and Science, General Director-Manager of the Armed Forces Institute for Housing, General Director of Architecture and Housing for the Asturias government, among other jobs. He has belonged to the Boards of Directors of SEDES, SOGEPSA, Santa Bárbara, Caja Postal, Agencia Industrial del Estado and of HUNOSA itself.

Mr. Mariano Casado is an Economist, and until his appointment as Chairman of the company in SEPI in charge of corporate promotion SEPI Desarrollo Empresarial (SEPIDES), he was an advisor at the Economics Office of the Socialist Parliamentary Group. He has been Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Food, Chairman of the state-owned company Empresa Nacional Santa Bárbara, Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, General Director of Industry, Director in charge of Promotion and Development at the state-owned shipbuilding company Astilleros Españoles and Head of the Department for Social and Labor Affairs at the Presidency of the Government.

Mr. Julián Arévalo Arias, who has been appointed Chairman of the state-owned public limited company Sociedad Anónima Estatal de Caución Agraria (SAECA), is a graduate in Economics. Until now he worked at the Institute for Tax Studies (Instituto de Estudios Fiscales), being a member of the Staff of the Director of the State Office for the State Administration (Agencia Estatal de la Administración del Estado). Before that, among other jobs, he was State Secretary for the Military Administration and State Secretary for Defense, Chairman of ISDEFE and of MERCASA, Deputy Secretary in charge of Agriculture, Fishing and Food, and Chairman of the FORPPA. He was a Member of Telefónica´s Board of Directors, as well as of Bazán and of the Instituto Nacional de Industria. He belongs to the Civil Administrators of the State (Cuerpo Superior de Administradores Civiles del Estado) and to the Corps of Finance Inspectors of the State (Inspectores de Finanzas del Estado).