France's Carmat appoints top shareholder Bastid as board chairman

(Reuters) -French artificial heart maker Carmat said on Tuesday it had appointed its top shareholder Pierre Bastid as chairman of the board.

Bastid will succeed Alexandre Conroy, who had resigned for personal reasons, the Paris-based company said, adding that the French investor holds 13.5% of Carmat's share capital via LOHAS and Les Bastidons entities.

"The entire board and I are fully mobilised alongside the Carmat teams, and determined to pursue and accelerate the company's commercial development over the coming months," Bastid said in a statement.

Since acquiring a stake in Carmat in 2016, Bastid has participated in each of its capital hikes.

Carmat is a 30-year-old French medtech champion, set up by heart surgeon Alain Carpentier and one of Airbus' founders, industrialist Jean-Luc Lagardere.

In September last year, it warned its survival was at stake after problems with its supply chain, and appealed to shareholders to re-invest.

It had since launched a series of capital increases. Airbus has supported Carmat with 50 million euros since it was created but has expressed little appetite to invest significant new sums, according to people familiar with the discussions.

(Reporting by Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk; editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Jason Neely)