„At the end of September a general meeting of shareholders of the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) will be held. Upon acceptance of the decisions of the competent authority – the general meeting of shareholders, the public will be informed of the decisions discussed and adopted at the meeting.“
This is the laconic comment of the press service of the Ministry of Finance around the insider’s news, which the Banker weekly found out. An editor of the newspaper knew from a source also the date of the meeting – 30 September. He also said that the agenda of the meeting is election of a Supervisory Board.
The appointed in early July supervisory board of state Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) is expected to be fully replaced.
The call will not be published in the Commercial Register. This, however, does not constitute a violation of the law if all shareholders are invited, and they are two – the state through the Ministry of Finance with 99.99%, and the remaining shares (8 of them) owned by DSK bank.
For the new supervision of the country’s only state bank inflect are rumoured the names of financier Atanas Katsarchev and Deputy Minister of Finance in the current caretaker government Kiril Ananiev. Atanas Katsarchev has already been in the supervision of BDB (until spring 2013) and now is among the advisers of Mr. Porozhanov. The name of the banker Asen Yagodin was also mentioned, but he was surprised by hearing the news and firmly declined to comment. Given his professional biography, however – Executive Director in the operational management, it is more logical for him to be eventually reinstated to the Management Board of the Bank, where he was from 2011 to 2013.
The last election of supervisory board was also not publicly announced nor was the date of the meeting. The nominated and subsequently appointed names for the supervisory board: economist Nikolai Nenovsky, head of the political office of the then finance minister Peter Tchobanov, Denitza Kirova and Executive Director of the Agency for Privatization Emil Karanikolov. They were appointed on 4 July 2014, immediately after the general meeting but neither the state bank, nor the Ministry of Finance gave information about the meeting and the decisions made. The announcement of the BDB appeared two weeks later – on 17 July
The positions in the supervisory and operational management of state credit institution are one of the windiest country. The most recent changes took place with the coming into office of Oresharsky Cabinet. He first took care of the executive management – in the summer of last year, through several steps Mr. Oresharsky completely changed the Management Board. It was finally formed in the early autumn of 2013, and then the new board of BDB included Dimo Spasov, CEO and executives Bilian Balev and Ivan Hristov.
This management will be remembered by indiscriminate cut offs in the middle management of the bank. The great personnel change hit Bulgarian Development Bank after the European vote on May 25, when in just a few days ten senior officials of the bank were asked to leave. The unofficial reason – were they had been politically nepotistic appointments.
The Cabinet Oresharsky however said that the management of BDB intended to acquire new cars worth 380,000 levs. The bank declined to comment on this issue.
In the opinions of observers, Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) has remained true to the meaning of its existence – as a conductor of the state policy in the financing of small and medium businesses – which are the backbone of any economy. Each new minister points this out. The last time it was publicly said again was by Daniela Bobeva in her role as deputy prime minister. „Among the priorities of the strategy for small and medium enterprises approved by the government recently is the ensuring of access to financial resources for small businesses. The concept for transforming Bulgarian Development Bank includes the development of specific products for SMEs for pre-export financing and funding businesses in handicapped financial and economic situation. The funding will be for small businesses that can not obtain financing from banks because they do not have good credit history,“ this officially was announced by Mrs. Bobeva. Check the Banker showed that three years ago the ratio of loans for small businesses to those for big companies was 40% to 60% – in favour of the big entrepreneurs. According to recent data, the ratio is still 55% to 45% in favour of large companies.
The BANKER
