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Nicholas Nanopoulos will not run for Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Eurobank Ergasias. The election of a new management board will take place at the next general meeting of the bank on 27 June this year.

Nanopoulos had held this position since 1996 when Euromerchant Bank (Ευρωεπενδυτική Τράπεζα) was renamed Eurobank. Then, one of the richest Greeks in the world, Spiros Latsis, bought the local bank and Nanopoulos was appointed CEO of EFG Eurobank and a member of the Board of Directors of EFG Eurobank Ergasias.

Latsis withdrew as Eurobank’s chief shareholder in the summer of last year and gave his shares in the bank to the family heirs. Nanopoulos remained the leading figure of the main financial institution for another year, until it became clear that the bank should be nationalized.

Earlier this year, Eurobank announced that it would not be able to collect from private investors the 10% required for its recapitalization. The full amount of its financial rescue passed into the hands of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, which is funded under the rescue programme of Europe and the International Monetary Fund to Greece. By covering the full amount of the bank recapitalization, the Financial Stability Fund becomes the main shareholder of the bank and the bank itself becomes state property.

When it was announced that Nicholas Nanopoulos had withdrawn from his position of eternal CEO, a member of the social network Twitter said, "Nanopoulos was like the general secretaries in Communist countries – the whole system must fall in order for him to go away."

For some of the representatives of the banking circles, the nationalization of Eurobank is considered as the end of an era. Although it is believed at present that the bank is not threatened and that it is functioning normally under state control, it is expected that soon there will be changes. One of the scenarios suggests that another bank will finally take over Eurobank after the recapitalization whereas according to the other, it will be divided into a "good" and a "bad" part following the example of Laiki Bank in Cyprus. The healthy assets will be sold and the rest will be subject to liquidation. So far, none of the theories has been confirmed but it is certain that what has been left of Eurobank after the crisis will not be public property forever.