A top ruling SYRIZA lawmaker on Wednesday said the top managers of non-systemic Attica Bank will be summoned to a relevant Parliament committee probing bank loans to political parties and the mass media, whereas an audit by the Bank of Greece (BoG) of the Athens-based credit institution will be given to opposition parties.
A top ruling SYRIZA lawmaker on Wednesday said the top managers of non-systemic Attica Bank will be summoned to a relevant Parliament committee probing bank loans to political parties and the mass media, whereas an audit by the Bank of Greece (BoG) of the Athens-based credit institution will be given to opposition parties.
SYRIZA parliamentary spokesman Socrates Famellos, who is also the chairman of the specific committee, made the statement.
Heightened scrutiny focused directly on Attica Bank over the past two weeks, with the BoG first rejecting the main shareholder’s appointments to its board of directors and a new CEO, followed by a suspension of trading of Attica’s shares on the Athens Stock Exchange and a temporary prohibition of the lender extending new loans. Attica’s primary shareholder is the engineers’ and contractors’ pension fund (TSMEDE).
A compromise finally arose over Attica’s top management, while the bourse suspension was lifted on Tuesday.
On another and related front, Attica Bank appears to have extended 128 million euros in loans to companies controlled by Kalogritsas family since 2011, with more than 50 million approved in 2015.
Ioannis Kalogritsas, the son of construction contractor Christos Kalogritsas, recently established a new company and won one of four national broadcast television licenses auctioned off by the Greek government at the end of August, in a procedure vilified by current broadcasters and the political opposition.
The younger Kalogritsas received a letter of guarantee from Attica Bank, using as collateral up to 500 hectares of undeveloped grazing land on an Ionian isle, land granted to him by a local businessman there.