Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English, 98-12-13

Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

From: The Cyprus Mail at <http://www.cynews.com/>

December 13, 1998

CONTENTS

[01] 'Poor relation' joins the big boys out in Greece

[02] Murder suspect 'confessed to killing students'

[03] Peace conference in Limassol

[04] Police find bomb in car

[05] Suspect remanded after stabbing

[06] Kyprianou bristles at Diko defections

[07] Nicosia gets its first sex shop

[08] Cyprus Football Results

[01] 'Poor relation' joins the big boys out in Greece

DERIDED BY market traders as something of a rudderless institution, Hellenic Bank brushed aside the criticism and threw a lavish party in Athens to celebrate the official launch of its much-heralded operation in Greece.

The bank's first branch in Greece, a prestige address just a stone's throw away from parliament in central Athens, was officially opened on Thursday by Chairman and Chief Executive Panos Ghalanos. The branch is manned by 26 staff and, according to senior bank officials, will be the first of four to open in the next 18 months in Greece.

Ghalanos told assembled dignitaries that the bank aimed "gradually to introduce a whole range of products and services to cater for Greek entrepreneurs, investors and consumers". Hellenic's presence in Greece, he added, "will give us practical knowledge on operating in a fully- liberalised environment".

But Hellenic's detractors say the move to Greece may have come too late, and they question the bank's ability to capture a niche in the market there. They insist that the 22-year-old bank needed a top management shake- up and a policy change to shake off its image as the poor relation of the much bigger Bank of Cyprus and the Cyprus Popular Bank.

Senior Bank officials, however, dismiss the criticism as unfair and see it as a result of the short-term high expectations usually found on stock market floors the world over. They maintain that the critics are not paying enough attention to the realities of the bank's progress in recent years.

Hellenic's entry into the Greek market, the officials said, was a carefully weighed move that could not have come a day sooner.

"We cannot do everything on the brokers' wish list, but our medium and long- term prospects are very promising," said Hellenic's Marketing Manager Yiannis Telonis. "Going to Greece earlier would have been a gamble," he told The Sunday Mail.

"We are now embarking on a major expansion to which we could not commit the resources earlier without putting shareholders' interests at risk," he said.

"We had to get a good share of the local market before we expand outside Cyprus. We are just one-sixth of the size of the Bank of Cyprus."

Hellenic at present has an estimated 15 per cent share of the Cyprus market in terms of local currency deposits and, according to the bank's chief economist, Marios Clerides, there was still potential for growth.

"Bank of Cyprus and Popular Bank had to expand in Greece when they saw that there was no room for further expansion in Cyprus. We still have growth potential locally, but the potential is much greater in Greece," Clerides told The Sunday Mail.

Clerides' reading of prospects in Greece is viewed by some to be on the optimistic side, although one trader, Harris Savvides of Laiki Investments, sees some benefit in Hellenic's move to Greece.

"Anything they get there will be a bonus since the market in Cyprus is saturated," Savvides told The Sunday Mail.

The move to Greece, Telonis said, had cost Hellenic £4 million pounds in capital alone, a sum which he said could not have been spared soon after the 1996 acquisition of the onshore operations in Cyprus of Barclays Bank.

That acquisition nearly doubled the number of employees to more than 1,100 and increased deposits by nearly 90 per cent, but Telonis said it has now been absorbed. "It was more like a merger because it was a marriage of equals. We needed time to absorb it before we could embark on such a major undertaking like expanding into Greece.

That undertaking, according to traders and economists, might take several years before it begins to bear fruit.

"They'll have to wait at least a couple of years before they start getting results," said Laiki Investments' Savvides. Others also making a living on the trading floor of the Cyprus Stock Exchange share his view, and offer a rather harsh scenario for the motive behind the Greece move.

"Hellenic has been under so much pressure from major shareholders to expand or diversify that I suspect the move to Greece was partly designed to shut them up," said Neofytos Neofytou of AAA United Stockbrokers. The wish list of shareholders, he said, included expanding into the insurance business.

Stavros Agrotis, a senior broker with CISCO, the Bank of Cyprus' brokerage and investment banking arm, said Hellenic was still ironing out some of the bumps left by the 1996 acquisition of Barclays. The task, he said, should have been given priority over a move to Greece.

"They are stuck with a number of highly-paid former Barclays employees and their first post-acquisition voluntary redundancy scheme was not a success, " Agrotis told The Sunday Mail.

Clerides and Telonis disagree and say that Hellenic identified medium and small-size businesses in Greece as a neglected niche which the bank would swiftly move to fill.

"Not only that, but we shall also provide a hell of a service to businessmen in those categories," said Telonis, who pointed out that Hellenic researched the move to Greece for 18 months before it made the decision to expand there.

Hellenic, which made £3.61 million in pre-tax profits in the first six months of 1998, appears to have given a measure of credibility to its detractors when it announced in a vaguely-worded statement on December 2 that substantial structural changes and improvements in work methods in the bank were in the offing. The upgrading of the bank's technology and the introduction of new ones were in their final stages, it added.

Ghalanos, Hellenic's chairman, later told the Financial Mirror that a voluntary redundancy scheme was now in place for employees with 12 years of service left before they reached their official retirement age.

About 100 employees were expected to take up the offer, he said. Those who did, he said, would be compensated with 48.88 monthly salaries, but he declined to say how much the scheme would cost and whether it would have an impact on earnings.

But the Hellenic critics remain unconvinced and, if the performance of the bank's share is anything to go by, they may have some ground to stand on.

Hellenic Bank shares, which traded at around £2.75 this week, have depreciated by about five per cent since the beginning of the year, while those of the Bank of Cyprus and the Cyprus Popular Bank rose by about 25 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

Traders say many brokerages and investment companies have reduced positions in the Hellenic titles and that buyers' interest in the share has been at a low ebb for some time.

"We have been net sellers of Hellenic for some time now," said one trader, who did not want to be named.

Popular Bank's Chief Economist Yiannos Tirkides offered a different diagnosis of Hellenic's ills. "As a small bank, you must identify a direction or a speciality and stick to it," he told The Sunday Mail.

"Hellenic has not done that yet."

December 13, 1998

[02] Murder suspect 'confessed to killing students'

BU HUA Cheng, the Chinese student suspected of being the mastermind behind the murder of a Chinese couple, was yesterday remanded in custody for eight days by Limassol District Court.

Senior Limassol CID Officer Andreas Kariolemos told the court that after his arrest, Bu had made a voluntary statement confessing to his part in the killings. The court heard he admitted that he and his alleged accomplice Wang Yang, 21, killed the couple and that their motive was robbery.

Bu, 22, was arrested on Friday night after he was found rummaging around in the basement of a private Limassol clinic. He had been on the run for eight days, and it is thought that during this time he never left Limassol, hiding during the day and coming out to forage for food at night.

He had been named by Yang as the mastermind behind the crime, and police had described him as highly dangerous. The victims, Lou Jinhui, 23, and his girlfriend Jiang Migxia, 23, were killed at their Limassol apartment, and their bodies were dumped down a ravine in the mountains.

According to Yang, he and Bu had thought the couple had $3,000 in the house, and had planned to steal it and then leave Cyprus by boat. All four were students at the same Limassol college.

A citizen's arrest of Bu was made by National Guard Officer Polykarpas Agathocleous at around 8.40pm. Agathocleous and others tied a chain round the man's legs to prevent him from escaping.

At the time of his arrest, Bu was described as looking "exhausted and traumatised". He was wearing overalls and had blackened his face and hands in an attempt at camouflage.

Acting President Spyros Kyprianou yesterday personally called Agathocleous to congratulate him on his part in apprehending Bu.

December 13, 1998

[03] Peace conference in Limassol

The council, which is affiliated to the World Peace Council, said that since its 1949 formation, it had contributed to the overall effort of the global organisation.

To this end, it had striven not only to demilitarise Cyprus, removing all foreign and domestic troops from the island, but had also contributed to the worldwide struggle for peace.

The council also expressed the hope that the new century would bring a world without war, prejudice or weapons of mass destruction and where human rights reigned supreme.

The one-day conference, which kicks off at 10am, will include talks and speeches by some of the organisation's leading lights.

December 13, 1998

[04] Police find bomb in car

Nicosia District Court heard that police had stopped 27-year-old Kyriacos Kaimis as he drove down Nicosia's Limassol Avenue at around 5.30am yesterday. A search of his car unearthed a bomb made out of a hand grenade with explosives strapped to it, police said.

The court remanded Kaimis for eight days on suspicion of illegal possession of an explosive device.

Radio reports speculated that the bomb was to have been used for a gangland hit.

December 13, 1998

[05] Suspect remanded after stabbing

"Whether I stay inside for one day or one hundred years makes no difference to me," suspect Andreas Demetriou, 48, tearfully told the court after Judge Leonidas Kalogirou asked him if he had any objection to the remand order.

Demetriou gave himself up to police on Friday following a knife attack on 26-year-old Sotiris Vassiliou at his Dhekelia home earlier that day.

Case investigator Andreas Ttofi told the court Demetriou had stabbed Vasiliou three times after an argument over the latter's decision to get engaged to his second cousin Ioanna Demetriou - the suspect's daughter. Ioanna witnessed the attack, the court heard.

"Everything went black, I don't remember what happened. I only realised what had happened when my daughter started screaming," Demetriou, who appeared in court with a bandaged hand, responded when he was asked by the judge if he had anything to say. Ttofi told the court that Vassiliou, who was rushed to Nicosia general hospital with stab wounds to his neck and leg, was not yet out of danger.

The suspect, who lives in Livadhia, went to the victim's home at about 10am on Friday after having a row with Vassiliou's mother at her workplace in Ormidia. He found his daughter at Vassiliou's home and an argument ensued. The altercation escalated into a fight between the suspect and the victim during which the stabbing occurred, the court heard.

Ttofi said the suspect drove the bleeding Vassiliou to nearby Ormidia police station himself. Vassiliou was rushed to Larnaca hospital and then on to the Nicosia general.

Demetriou, a civil aviation employee, turned himself in at Ormidia police station a few hours later, Ttofi said.

The victim works for a phone company in Nicosia.

December 13, 1998

[06] Kyprianou bristles at Diko defections

DISY yesterday unveiled their big coup: not just one but two former top members of rival party Diko are joining their ranks.

The defection of Petros Voskarides, a former senior Diko member, had been confirmed on Friday, but governing Disy's bigger 'catch', independent deputy Katerina Pantelidou, who was elected to the House on a Diko ticket in 1996, had been only rumour until yesterday.

Disy leader Nicos Anastassiades announced both new arrivals at yesterday's party conference in Nicosia.

He read out to delegates letters from both Pantelidou and Voskarides explaining their reasons for ditching centre-right Diko to join right-wing Disy.

Pantelidou's missive echoed what Voskarides had stated on Friday, that Disy was a more "progressive" party.

Diko leader Spyros Kyprianou reacted angrily to the blow to his party, saying such defections were motivated solely by over-ambition.

"There are cases where a person's ambition is such that no-one can allow for it, there are cases where they could not accept something unless they could be certain they would be in the party leadership," he said. "No one has ever left the Diko party for reasons of principle."

Kyprianou's party has been in turmoil ever since it backed a loser in the February presidential elections.

Voskarides and Pantelidou broke ranks with Diko in the run-up to those elections, unhappy at the party decision to abandon a government coalition with Disy to join with left-wing Akel in backing candidate George Iacovou. Two other Diko big-wigs, Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides and deputy Alexis Galanos, jumped ship at the same time in protest at the same decision.

Kyprianou yesterday charged that President Clerides had engineered these dissentions in an attempt to bolster his re-election campaign.

"It was a political coup, helped by the president," he claimed. The four dissenters were shown the door by Diko after Clerides returned to office on the back of Disy support.

Michaelides was subsequently re-appointed Interior Minister while Galanos was appointed presidential adviser and formed his own party.

Voskarides, who was government spokesman during Kyprianou's presidency and is now at the Cyprus embassy in Athens as a communications adviser, has called his former party "inflexible" and "cliquey".

December 13, 1998

[07] Nicosia gets its first sex shop

The interestingly-named Body Sex Ltd. is situated on Bouboulinas Street near the old city, and caters mostly for the lighter end of the market selling "sexy funny items" from kinky underwear to erotic playing cards to six-foot condoms.

It is, however, a 90s interpretation of the sex shop - once the domain of shifty old men in raincoats - with products aimed at both men and women.

"It's for those with absolutely no taboos," the shop's management told The Sunday Mail.

December 13, 1998

[08] Cyprus Football Results

Ethnikos-Anorthosis 0-2

Aris-AEK 1-2

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1998

Cyprus Mail: News Articles in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article