Hourican brings in RBS man at Bank of Cyprus
BANK of Cyprus has called on a second former senior banker from Royal Bank of Scotland to lead its restructuring following this year’s international bailout of Cyprus.
Euan Hamilton, formerly deputy chief executive of RBS’s non-core division, has joined Bank of Cyprus as a consultant to specifically look at the delinquency, restructuring and recoveries of loans.
Getting to grips with Bank of Cyprus’s bad loans is seen as the key issue for its new chief executive, John Hourican, the former RBS investment bank boss who was appointed last month. Cyprus’s turnaround efforts have been hampered by political infighting and there has been criticism over a lack of transparency around bad loans at its banks.
Bank of Cyprus’s recovery could be helped by the creation of a so-called bad bank to focus purely on running down non-performing loans and other problem loans, some industry observers and officials said. In his last role at RBS, Hamilton was responsible for overseeing the sale or run-down of more than £75bn of non-core assets over 18 months.
He left RBS around 2010 and joined Cramond Capital Partners, a corporate advisory firm based in Edinburgh.