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Obbligazioni perpetue e subordinateTutto quello che avreste sempre voluto sapere sulle obbligazioni perpetue... - Cap. 3
August 12, 2014 3:28 pm Unease grows among investors in Bulgaria’s Corpbank
By Kerin Hope in SofiaAuthor alerts
When Alex Nikolayev signed up for expensive treatment at a private clinic, his plan was to pay for it using money from his savings account.
Unfortunately for the 55-year-old physiotherapist, his money was lodged with Corporate Commercial Bank, the Bulgarian lender that was shut down in June by the country’s central bank following a run on its deposits.
“I feel desperate . . . The bank was supposed to reopen in July, now they’re talking about October,” he says. “This is my biggest single expense for several years, but it’s not my fault I can’t cover it.”
The frustration of depositors such as Mr Nikolayev is shared by much larger clients of the bank, the collapse of which was triggered by a public quarrel between Tsvetan Vassilev, the bank’s majority shareholder, and Delyan Peevski, a controversial politician and one of its biggest borrowers. Both men strongly deny wrongdoing.
Corpbank has not repaid the holders of a $150m senior unsecured bond that matured on Friday, among them several US and UK hedge funds, even though Bulgaria’s central bank and its finance ministry reassured international investors they would get their money.
“There is a grace period of one week but we are not optimistic [of getting the money],” said one hedge fund manager who asked not to be named. “Whatever the outcome, Bulgaria’s credibility with international markets has taken a hit.”
The Corpbank saga has highlighted the tight relationships between Bulgaria’s powerful business elite and its politicians as the country faces a snap general election on October 5.
The vote was called by Rosen Plevneliev, Bulgaria’s reform-minded president who has accused the country’s oligarchs of relying too heavily on state funds from public procurement contracts.
“Oligarchs have three sources of funds: public procurement contracts . . . deposits of state companies in banks [they control] and privatisation deals,” Mr Plevneliev says. “They are dependent on this money.”
Mr Vassilev, a former stockbroker who was named one of Bulgaria’s most influential people by Forbes magazine in 2012, expanded Corpbank by offering high interest rates for retail deposits, while also attracting deposits from state companies, particularly in the energy sector.
Regulation [of Bulgaria’s banks] is poor. Corpbank’s business model – of taking state deposits and funding related parties, including politicians – was actually protected by the central bank
- Nikolay Staykov, founder of Protest Network
Mr Peevski, meanwhile, advanced his political career thanks to a media empire nominally controlled by his mother, helped by financing from Corpbank.
But a dispute between the pair emerged in June over the financing of the Bulgarian stretch of the giant South Stream project, a €40bn Russian pipeline to send natural gas across the Black Sea to Austria as an alternative to an existing overland pipeline through conflict-torn Ukraine.
According to people with knowledge of Corpbank’s affairs, the bank offered a €90m guarantee to two construction companies linked to Mr Peevski to begin work on the 550km Bulgarian leg of the project.
However, the bank – in which Mr Vassilev owns a 51 per cent stake – withdrew from the deal when Bulgaria’s former socialist government froze its participation in South Stream after pressure from Brussels to investigate the project over possible infringement of EU tender rules.
Mr Peevski retaliated against Corpbank and Mr Vassilev by pulling funds out of the bank, prompting a run by depositors, the same people say.
This added to a rift between the two oligarchs over Mr Vassilev’s decision to back a new pro-business political party, Bulgaria without Censorship, which won two seats at May’s European parliamentary elections. Mr Peevski was elected with the rival Movement for Rights and Freedoms, an ethnic Turkish party, but resigned his seat after criticism of his political and business record.
Ognian Shentov, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia think-tank, says: “It was a street fight between two oligarchs that got out of hand. Now the central bank is also implicated with potentially damaging consequences.”
VTB Capital of Russia, a leading Corpbank shareholder, has declined to pump in fresh capital, while Oman’s sovereign wealth fund, which holds a larger stake, is awaiting the outcome of an audit of the bank by Deloitte, EY and Afa, a Bulgarian auditor, before making a decision. The auditors are unlikely to report their findings before October.
Ivan Iskrov, Bulgaria’s central bank governor, offered to resign after his proposal for a rescue package for Corpbank that would have averted a bail-in of large deposit holders was rejected by the government. The central bank’s head of supervision is under investigation by a public prosecutor.
A senior Bulgarian official with knowledge of the bank’s balance sheet says: “A preliminary audit showed there was poor documentation on a high percentage of corporate loans so they could not be assessed. We still have to find out the extent of related-party lending, which could be considerable.”
Nikolay Staykov, a founding member of Protest Network, a civil society group, says Corpbank was one of several private Bulgarian banks that were named as “bad apples” by western officials in Sofia because of poor governance.
“Regulation [of Bulgaria’s banks] is poor,” Mr Staykov says. “Corpbank’s business model – of taking state deposits and funding related parties, including politicians – was actually protected by the central bank.”
sì, anche per quello secondo me UCG verrà richiamata, su BNP la probabilità è abbastanza bassa. in caso di skip potrebbe andare sopra 100 (non pensate di diventare ricchi: al massimo va a 101 )