Gov’t appoints two more to Cyprus Popular board

The Cyprus government has appointed two more board members to the recently rescued Popular Bank, raising the number of new directors to seven after injecting 1.79 bln euros and taking an 84% stake in the bank.
The appointment of respected veteran banker Nicos Hadjinicolaou and business consultant and economics professor Panicos Poutzouris came from the Ministry of Finance and was approved by the Central Bank and the House Finance Committee.
The government’s efforts to remove former Finance Minister Michalis Sarris from the bank’s chairmanship seems to have stalled, for now, as the interim executive said that he was appointed by the previous board for a purpose, to help the bank return to a path of recovery, and does not plan to step down any time soon.
The communist-led administration is adamant on blaming the bank’s former administration for its troubles that included losses of about 2 mln euros on the back of a massive writedown of its Greek sovereign debt bought over the past two years when yields were rising and foreign bondholders were offloading.
The Popular Bank also announced that Jacqueline Loizides-Lambert has been appointed as its new Secretary replacing Stelios Hadjiosif who held the post for several years.