Andreas Treichl, Erste’s chief executive, was expected in Bucharest on Thursday, when he was also due to meet with Prime Minister Emil Boc to discuss Austrians’ plans for involvement in the economy this year, as well as a list of their demands to make doing business easier. His schedule was disrupted by the weather, though.
Treichl should chair a meeting of the Supervisory Board of BCR on Friday, to confirm the new executives, i.e. the chief executive officer and the two executive vice-presidents. Erste owns about 90% in BCR, so that it calls the shots when it comes to decision-making.
The term of Briton Dominic Bruynseels, 52, who was appointed chief executive officer of BCR in the summer of 2008, will end.
Treichl choose as his replacement a younger Czech executive, Tomas Spurny, 46, who, unlike Bruynseels, has a lot of experience working in the region, in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, after having spent the early years of his banking career in the United States. Spurny was released from his position as CEO of Hungary’s CIB Bank, member of Italy’s Intesa group, which he had held since early 2009. He had previously worked for the Italians in Slovakia, as well, where he had been CEO of VUB Bank for five years.
The second executive to be appointed at BCR is Czech-born Martin Skopek, 44, whom Treichl convinced to give up his position as member of the executive board in Vienna for taking over the job of executive vice-president for retail at BCR for a two-year term, according to market sources. Skopek will not leave his position as head of the retail business for the entire group, though, for which reason he should be commuting between Bucharest and Vienna.
He will replace Oana Petrescu, who is getting ready to leave the bank after working as executive vice-president of operations and IT and then of retail.
The third change in the management of BCR is the creation of a position of executive vice-president who will oversee investment banking, treasury and large corporates, which is directly supervised from Vienna now. The creation of this job means adjusting some of the duties of vice-president Wolfgang Schoiswohl, whose term at BCR has been recently extended by two years. Treichl chose a Romanian banker for the new position, Sergiu Manea, 39, who had been working in Vienna for many years, first for Bank Austria and then for asset manager Ithuba Capital.
Dominic Bruynseels, married and a father of five, came in Romania in 2008 after a long time spent working for UK’s Barclays. He was given the task to complete BCR’s restructuring and integration into Erste Group and consolidate the bank’s leading position in Romania. He eventually found himself having to steer the largest bank in the system through a time of harsh recession.
Bruynseels is leaving BCR sooner than scheduled, that is mid-2012. Last year, he told some acquaintances of his that he would to stay in Romania after leaving BCR. He set up a management consultancy in November 2011, which he said had nothing to do with his position at the Romania bank.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)