19 January 2016

 FBME has been advised that the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) has appointed a new Special Administrator for the Cyprus branch of FBME. Appointed from 11 January 2016, the new administrator, the third since this saga began in July 2014, is Mr. Chris Iacovides.

Mr Iacovides set out his stall in a meeting with FBME Bank’s Cyprus management team, in which he stated that he sees his job as being to maintain and preserve the operations of the branch, adding that he has no intention of shutting it down or causing further damage.

FBME has seen nothing formal from the CBC setting out the remit of Mr Iacovides and cannot at this moment give a view on his mandate. Time will tell, but the comments of the new Administrator make an encouraging start and his appointment is to be welcomed given the two week hiatus since the departure of his predecessor, London-based Andrew Andronikou.

Mr Andronikou’s appointment was not renewed by the CBC on 31 December 2015. It is not known why this happened, but it is recalled that he was paid a very high monthly stipend of EUR 50,000 for what he saw as a part-time assignment, leaving him ample opportunity to handle other work in the UK, such as the administration of London’s Criterion Restaurant.

In turn, Mr Andronikou had assumed the role of Administrator in May 2015, following the abrupt resignation of Dinos Christofides, the first Administrator, at whose door much of the blame for the CBC’s lamentable mishandling of the takeover of the FBME branch appears to have been laid by his erstwhile colleagues in the Central Bank.