Bank of Cyprus finally gets new board … and chairman

Bank of Cyprus finally has a chairman and board of directors ending more than a month of uncertainty after the bank’s previous administration was sacked over an excessive exposure to the Greek market and an administrator was appointed to undertake a recapitalisation plan.
Former central bank executive Sophoclis Michaelides has been appointed at BOCY’s new chairman.
None of the past board members have been recalled and many directors have no previous banking experience.
The bank needs about 10 bln euros after it was forced to absorb Popular Laiki Bank as part of a Eurogroup experiment that went wrong and stopped liquidity from the European Central Bank.
The process to select a new board followed two weeks of hard bargaining and vetting between the new government that inherited a bankrupt state and sought a bailout that included closing down the island’s second largest bank and grabbing just over a third of large deposits.
The remaining members of the board are: Constantinos Damtsas, Lenia Georgiadou, Costas Hadjipapas from the trade union Etyk, Philippos Mannaris, Lambros Papadopoulos, Andreas Persianis, Andreas Poetis, former Finance Ministry Director General Panicos Pouros, Erol Riza, Savvas Savvides, banker Takis Taoushanis, academic George Theocharides and Michalis Zannetides.