Bloomberg
March 13, 2018
Piraeus Bank SA property deals involving managers including Former Chairman Michalis Sallas may have cost the bank 6.4 million euros ($7.9 million), according to a report by Greece’s Anti Money-laundering Authority.
In the report, a copy of which was reviewed by Bloomberg, the regulator said it looked at the bank’s sale of five properties to a Cypriot firm in 2016 and found that “there are strong indications that Mr. Sallas and other members of Piraeus management who participated in the deals are guilty of malfeasance.” Sallas, who led the firm for a quarter of a century until he stepped down in July 2016, disputes the report’s findings and denies any wrongdoing.
The properties -- which had been sold in 2003 to companies “linked to Sallas or members of his family” and then repurchased in 2006 by Piraeus -- were offloaded to the Cypriot company in 2016 using loans from the bank, the report said. The transactions, with funds going through a series of intermediate companies, showed the lender was “breaching prudent banking methods,” resulting in a financial hit for the bank, the regulator said.
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