Josef Ackermann to join Bank of Cyprus board

Josef Ackermann is set to become non-executive chairman of Bank of Cyprus in an overhaul of its board of directors proposed by some of its biggest shareholders including Wilbur Ross, the US private equity billionaire.

The former Deutsche Bank chief executive leads a new slate of directors being put forward to replace the existing board, which is expected to resign at an annual shareholder meeting on November 20.

The proposal comes only a year after Bank of Cyprus was saved from collapse by an international rescue after the country was buffeted by the Greek debt crisis.

In July the Mediterranean country's biggest lender bolstered its balance sheet by selling €1bn of shares to investors including Mr Ross and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Mr Ross, who represents a group of North American investors owning 17 per cent of the bank, has teamed up with Tyrus Capital, a Monaco-based hedge fund that owns close to 5 per cent, to propose the new board members.

"We are quite thrilled about this," Mr Ross said. "It's not so much that we thought the old board was doing a bad job; we believed having more banking experience on the board would be more useful."

Mr Ross said the bank approached Mr Ackermann about being its chief executive last year, but he turned it down due to his other commitments. John Hourican, former head of investment banking at Royal Bank of Scotland, took the job instead.

Mr Ackerman spent a decade as Deutsche Bank's chief executive until 2012. The 66-year-old Swiss citizen resigned last year as chairman of Zurich Insurance after the suicide of the insurer's chief financial officer. A probe at the Swiss insurer later cleared Mr Ackermann of any inappropriate behaviour.

Last month, the Munich prosecutor's office said it was charging Mr Ackermann as well as Jurgen Fitschen, Deutsche Bank's co-chief executive, and four other former board members, with attempted fraud relating to a decade-long legal battle with the heirs of the Kirch publishing empire.

Other people put forward to join Bank of Cyprus's board as non-executive directors include Arne Berggren, a former Swedbank executive nominated by the EBRD, and Michael Spanos, a former director of the Central Bank of Cyprus.

Mr Ross is planning to become vice-chairman of the bank alongside Vladimir Strzhalkovskiy, a former KGB agent who has been the bank's vice-chairman since last year's international rescue.

Ακολουθήστε το Euro2day.gr στο Google News!Παρακολουθήστε τις εξελίξεις με την υπογραφη εγκυρότητας του Euro2day.gr

FOLLOW USΑκολουθήστε τη σελίδα του Euro2day.gr στο Linkedin

Also put forward to join the board is Maksim Goldman, director of strategic projects at Renova, the Swiss holding company of Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg. Mr Ackermann is himself a non-executive director at Renova.

Next month, Bank of Cyprus shares are due to restart trading more than a year after they were suspended. The lender is in talks with the London Stock Exchange and EuronextNYSE about moving its secondary listing from Greece to the UK or the Netherlands next year.

One of the biggest challenges facing Bank of Cyprus is the European Central Bank's stress test and asset quality review of the continent's largest lenders, for which results are due to be published on October 26.

© The Financial Times Limited 2014. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation