BOCY UPDATE: 2 candidates quit, Vassiliades proxies at 8%

With the historic Bank of Cyprus shareholders’ meeting a few hours away, two of the 49 candidates seeking a board seat have withdrawn, while a major law firm has expressed its intention to use proxies representing just over 8% of the share capital to vote for local or foreign board members.
The bank announced that of the 12 interim board members seeking re-election and the 37 new candidates, Spyros Episkopou and Constantinos Herodotou have withdrawn their candidacies.
The Central Bank of Cyprus had said that it was still reviewing all the candidates fro the board and that it would have a final say on the 18 members comprising the new board.
Meanwhile, Christodoulos Vassiliades, representing the interests of major local and foreign depositors and shareholders, informed the bank and the authorities that he controls shares and proxies representing 391.047.420 voting rights, or 8,32% of the total share capital, and that he plans to use these at his own discretion at the meeting at the Filoxenia conference centre Tuesday afternoon.
The bank said that after the meeting and the election of new board members who will see the bank through its final states of restructuring, Christodoulos Vassiliades will hold voting rights below the threshold of 5% of the bank’s total share capital.
The bank announced last week that its share capital as at August 30, 2013 amounted to 4,698,219,049 euros divided into 4,698,219,049 ordinary shares of a nominal value of 1.00 each, of which 81.4% is held by 21,000 shareholders arising from the conversion of unsecured deposits. A further 0.5% is held by 88,000 former BOCY shareholders and 18.1% is held by the ‘legacy Laiki’ following Popular Laiki’s closure and absorption into BOCY.
It is not yet clear if interim CEO Christos Sorotos, appointed on May 29, will stay at the helm of the bank and navigate it through the restructuring plan that has been proposed by consultants McKinsey and subject to approval or implementation by the new board.
Original BOCY shareholders, including the Church of Cyprus, who had seen their stake diluted to below 1%, withdrew a court injunction to block the general meeting and reinstate their stake.
The general meeting to be held at the Filoxenia conference centre in Nicosia at 4pm on Tuesday will only deal with the election of up to 18 board members. The draft consolidated group results for FY2012 will be reviewed by the new board on October 10.