The finance ministry's leadership is aiming to announce a new chairman and CEO for Greece's all-important privatization fund by Friday, according to reports.
The finance ministry's leadership is aiming to announce a new chairman and CEO for Greece's all-important privatization fund by Friday, according to reports.
Sources have pointed to current board member Angelos Vlachos as the favorite of Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos to take over the spot. Vlachos has an art history academic background and experience in the tourism strategy sector as an employee of Greece's state-run tourism organization.
Nevertheless, the prospect of Vlachos' appointment has reportedly generated opposition within the fund, officially called the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF), or TAIPED in its Greek-language acronym.
Eurozone members and the Commission field non-voting observers on the HRADF's board.
The previous chairman and CEO, Stergios Pitsiorslas, stepped down when he was recently appointed as an out-of-Parliament deputy economy minister in the current leftist government, and after a tenure considered as unprecedented for privatizations in Greece.
Even though Pitsiorlas and the SYRIZA government inherited agreements to sell a majority stake of the Piraeus Port Authority to Cosco, the property development concession for the Helleniko site to a Lamda Development-led consortium and management 14 regional airports to a Fraport-led consortium, the actual deals were implemented during his watch at HRADF, with the previously opposed SYRIZA party changing positions once in power and after it signed a third memorandum in August 2015.
Based on the fund's charter and the memorandum-mandated law that established the entity in 2011, CEO Antonis Leousis serves as the temporary chairman of the board.
Leousis, a civil engineer by training, previously served as the CEO of a major Greek bank's commercial property development and management subsidiary.