Bank of Cyprus

Shareholders of bailed-out Cyprus’s biggest bank have elected former Deutsche Bank chief Josef Ackermann as the new chairman.

The vote on Thursday came after the Bank of Cyprus passed a European in-depth review of its finances last month.

The bank had earlier bolstered its capital base by raising 1 billion euros.

The leaking of documents on the rescue of Cyprus’s second-biggest bank distorts the truth about the country’s bailout and may damage confidence in the euro, former European Central Bank Governing Council member Panicos Demetriades said.

Moody’s on Monday announced it had upgraded Bank of Cyprus’s credit rating from Ca to Caa3, reflecting the lender’s strengthened capital cushions, according to a statement by the rating agency.

The Cypriot bank’s outlook remains stable, Moody’s added.

Cypriot lender Bank of Cyprus has completed the sale of a UK loan portfolio of residential and commercial real estate facilities for 361 million euros (451.29 million US dollar).

Results of stress tests on Cyprus’s banking sector have shown a re-establishment of stability in the banking sector, and could expedite the complete lifting of capital controls, Finance Minister Harris Georgiades (photo) said.

“It won’t be tomorrow but we shall commence the process of lifting the very last restrictions soon, in a gradual and staged manner,” Georgiades told Reuters.

The Central Bank of Cyprus on Wednesday announced the suspension of all operations of the Cypriot branches of Tanzania-based bank FBME until Friday, with sources saying a possible extension of the suspension by another two days is likely.

Bank of Cyprus will make a decision on whether to proceed to a share capital increase or not at the end of June, after reporting its first profit in seven quarters on Friday, saying it was on track on deleveraging and improving the quality of its loan portfolio.

First-quarter profit after tax was 31 million euros after a 103-million-euro loss in the last quarter of 2013.

Cypriot banking group Bank of Cyprus has sold loans extended to Serbian real estate company Robne Kuce Beograd to Piraeus Bank of Greece, it said on Thursday.

Bank of Cyprus said on Monday that it is looking “positively” at a revised offer to sell its loss-making PJSC Ukrainian unit to Russia’s Alfa Group as part of a restructuring drive.

Bank of Cyprus’s 225-million-euro sale of its Ukrainian bank is on track to happen within weeks, Chief Executive John Hourican said in an interview on Monday.

The bank announced on January 31 that its Ukrainian operations would be sold to Russia’s Alfa Group.

[Reuters]