Vassilis Rologis has been elected as the new Chairman of the Board of Bank of Cyprus Group following a stormy Annual General Meeting of shareholders, where Board and Management came under intense criticism for their handling of issues at the Group.
The AGM also saw the departure of Solon Triantafyllides after 17 years at the helm of the organisation. Following the AGM, the Board of Directors convened a meeting and elected Vassilis G. Rologis and Andreas Artemis as Chairman and Vice-Chairman, respectively.
Rologis won the Chairmanship vote with a narrow margin of 9 against 8 for his opponent Georgos Georgiades (EAC Chairman). Informed sources said departing Chairman Solon Triantafyllides cast a blank vote while in an effort to portray a unified image, Theodoros Aristodimou who was widely tipped to become Vice-Chairman, withdraw from the race to allow Georgiades ally, Artemis to become the new Vice-Chairman.
A proposal by the outgoing board seeking shareholder approval to fix the salary of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman at CYP 100.000 and CYP 50.000 respectively per annum met a hostile reception from shareholders who described the salary scale as “outrageous” and too generous.
Explanations by Rologis that the new Chairman and other Board members needed to spend considerable amount of time and were taking major responsibilities met a lukewarm reception from shareholders, who were also hostile to another proposal to change the salary scale of the other 16 Board members. Under the new scheme, board members will receive an annual salary of CYP 8.000 each instead of CYP 6.800 plus CYP 30 for every meeting.
Following a tight vote of 68 in favour and 63 against, the salary hike for the Chairman and Vice-Chairman was passed.
NEW ERA
The departure of Solon Triantafyllides and the election of a new Chairman and from the beginning of the year, a new top Management team headed by Andreas Eliades is seen as a positive development for the Group as it embarks on a policy to boost profitability.
The Group’s Chief Executive Officer, Eliades reiterated the Group’s goals stating that the cost-to-income ratio is expected to be less than 58% by 2007 while the Return on Equity (ROE) is forecast to exceed 13% by 2007 with 120 branches in Greece by 2007 and 12 branches in Australia by end of year from the current 100 and 9 branches in each country respectively.
The Group continues to examine the possibility of expanding to the Balkans and Russia.
The AGM also approved the Board proposal for a 4 cent per share dividend. The ex-dividend date is 26 May 2005. The dividend yield, based on the stock’s last closing price, stands at 2.2%.
