By A. Doga
The retirement of long-time Piraeus Bank chairman Michalis Sallas on Wednesday marked a milestone in the Greek banking sector, as the latter ran the bank since 1991 when it had a mere 200 employees and 0.1 percent of the market share at the time.
Sallas himself read out his resignation to Piraeus Bank’s board of directors, which in turn voted at the same session to declare him as the group’s honorary chairman. His temporary replacement is professor Harikleia Apalagaki, who serves as an executive member of Piraeus Bank’s board.
The development, although sudden by Greek banking sector standards, comes as the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is making its presence distinctly felt on Greece’s banking sector, whose four systemic banks have been recapitalized three times since the economic crisis began in 2009. The recapitalizations have transformed the state into a major shareholder of banks' share capital, which still operate in an environment affected by imposed capital controls.
The SSM’s board has demanded “radical” measures by Greece’s systemic banks, especially in terms of ameliorating the still worrying level of non-performing loans (NPLs) in the country, with the emphasis on reforming the corporate governance model employed by Greece’s systemic banks – a process that apparently directly affects the make-up and structure of each bank’s board of directors and top management.
Following a positive evaluation of Piraeus’ corporate governance model by the SSM, results which were announced last week, Sallas implemented his decision to resign, something that he had reportedly announced to both the Bank of Greece and the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund at the beginning of the year.
