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Eurobank’s new Managing Director is Christos Megalou who, until recently, was Vice President of the Investment Banking Division of Credit Suisse in north-eastern Europe.

It is expected that George David, head of Coca-Cola (E3) in Greece, will be appointed Executive Director of the bank. He became a strategic investor in Eurobank last year and was appointed as a member of the board of directors of the bank in November last year.

The new appointments became necessary after Nikos Nanopoulos, former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the bank, announced that he would not run for CEO of Eurobank Ergasias at the meeting of the management board scheduled for 27 June this year.
 
The initial scenarios involved two main candidates for the managerial post at Eurobank. The first was Christos Megalou and the second Nikos Karamouzis, who is currently Deputy CEO of the bank. Karamouzis was proposed following the research by the consulting firm Egon Zehnder. He was defined as the most appropriate bank officer to replace Nanopoulos and to head the bank.

"It will be easier to reform the bank if the new management does not involve old members," state anonymous sources from the Ministry of Finance cited by the online edition of To Vima newspaper. Christos Megalou has extensive experience in the sector and experts believe that he will play a key role in the regeneration of Eurobank.

According to the online edition eurotoday.gr, the third proposal for the head of the bank was Takis Arapoglou, former president of the National Bank of Greece (NBG). He had been offered the position but refused to assume it. However, it is expected that Arapoglou will be a board member of the bank.

The changes in Eurobank’s management were an expected and logical step after the bank failed to attract private investors to participate in its recapitalization process as a result of which Eurobank was nationalized this spring. Now, the main shareholder in the bank is the state Financial Stability Fund which is funded by Europe and the International Monetary Fund.

Actually, the stability fund had proposed who would head the bank but along with this, there are other factors affecting the final decision. According to information in the Greek media, the Bank of Greece, the Ministry of Finance and members of the current management had serious differences about who should take over the leading position. However, only one application had been submitted at the meeting of the Fund.

Meanwhile, it has become clear that Piraeus Bank has exceeded the expectations of the supervisors of the Bank of Greece and has collected more than 1.4 billion euro in private investment during the process of recapitalization.

The Athens Stock Exchange was positively influenced by the developments in the banking sector and the main index closed on Tuesday at 840.7 basis points, reporting a 1.3% increase.