Cos­ta Ri­can na­tion­al, Igna­cio Segares, has re­signed as a di­rec­tor and as the chair­man of the board of the con­sumer goods dis­trib­u­tor Unilever Caribbean Ltd (UCL), which is list­ed on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change.

The an­nounce­ment of the res­ig­na­tion of Segares came in a no­tice on the web­site of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC) that was post­ed yes­ter­day.

The no­tice, which was re­ceived by the TTSEC on Fri­day night, in­di­cat­ed that his res­ig­na­tion was with ef­fect from June 28, 2023.

Segares was ap­point­ed as a UCL di­rec­tor and as the chair­man of the board of the com­pa­ny, with ef­fect from De­cem­ber 31. His ap­point­ment last­ed for six months.

Unilever did not im­me­di­ate­ly an­nounce a re­place­ment for Segares.

A se­nior ex­ec­u­tive of the com­pa­ny read, but did not re­spond to, a mes­sage ques­tion­ing why Segares re­signed and who is re­plac­ing him.

The mes­sage al­so ques­tioned whether the res­ig­na­tion was linked to an in­ter­ven­tion by re­tired Unilever chair­man, Gary Voss, at the com­pa­ny’s June 6, 2023 Unilever an­nu­al meet­ing at the Hy­att Re­gency.

Voss was sharply crit­i­cal of Unilever Caribbean’s ap­point­ment of the ma­jor­i­ty of the di­rec­tors on the com­pa­ny’s board and the re­duc­tion in its mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion in the last eight years.

Voss told the an­nu­al meet­ing: “In 2015, the mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of this com­pa­ny was $1.8 bil­lion. The share price then was $68. The share price now is about $15. The mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of the com­pa­ny is now $400 mil­lion. So the val­ue that has been de­stroyed un­der the watch of this board is $1.4 bil­lion.

Unilever an­nounced the re­tire­ment of Voss as chair­man of the board of Unilever Caribbean Ltd ef­fec­tive May 21, 2015.

Some 50 per cent of Unilever Caribbean is owned by Unilever Over­seas Hold­ings AG, while the 50 per cent is owned by share­hold­ers on the lo­cal stock ex­change.