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Swisscom chief dead in apparent suicide

Company appoints interim CEO

Swisscom has appointed an interim CEO, after announcing that 49-year-old Carsten Schloter was found dead in his flat in Fribourg on July 23.

While a police investigation is ongoing, police has describing his death as “an apparent suicide”, according to Reuters.

Urs Schaeppi has been appointed interim CEO.

Prior to joining Swisscom in 2000, Schloter had worked for Mercedes and Debitel. He rose to CEO at Swisscom in 2006. One of his earliest decisions was to acquire Italy's Fastweb broadband network in 2007.

While credited with turning the company into Switzerland's leading telco, Schloter was facing challenges on two fronts. Smartphones have begun eating into the company's revenues (as they are in many markets), while the country's competition regulator WEKO announced last week that it would conduct an investigation into anti-competitive conduct by Swisscom.

In an interview Swiss publication Schweiz am Sonntag in May, Schloter had spoken of the stress induced by an “always on” culture, reports The Independent. He had also referred to the stress resulting from his divorce in 2009 which reduced contact with his children to fortnightly visits. ®

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