Codere Appoints Luis Villalba as CFO

Grupo Codere has appointed Luis Villalba as its new Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

The appointment sees Villalba replace the incumbent CFO, Óscar Fernández de Llano, who resigned from Codere’s leadership team during H1 proceedings.

A 25-year executive in financial management, Villalba joins Codere from food and olive oil exporter Deoleo Group, where he served as the Financial Director and an executive committee member of the Spanish multinational.

Further experience has seen Villalba lead Plc auditing and business recovery units as an executive of “Big-Four” accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

“In his new role as CFO of Grupo Codere, Luis Villalba will take on the challenge of leading the company’s financial strategy after the refinancing,” read Codere’s announcement.

H1 trading saw Codere governance overhaul the firm’s C-level executive team, welcoming the appointment of Gonzaga Higuero as the new Group CEO.

The Spanish heritage gambling group continues its corporate transformation programme, with bondholders granting a further €100m liquidity extension for 2022.