site.btaCorpbank Clients Ask State to Block All of Bank's Assets

ESD 16:01:00 21-09-2014
MY1600ES.103
103 ECONOMY - CORPBANK - COMMITTEE - LETTER

Corpbank Clients
Ask State to Block
All of Bank's Assets


Sofia, September 21 (BTA) - The committee for protecting
Bulgaria's financial and banking stability has sent an open
letter to the media, in which they insist that the State blocks
all assets, which have been directly or indirectly purchased
with credits by Corporate Commercial Bank's (Corpbank). Corpbank
clients established the committee in Sofia on August 19, 2014.

The bank's clients claim that these assets have been purchased
with their deposits and funds, which is why they demand that
such a measure is taken.

The letter further states that for 90 days already the committee
has been waiting for the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) to
answer whethter companies which have received credits from
Corpbank are secured, so that the bank's credit portfolio has a
real value.

The letter also demands an answer about statements that 3.5
billion leva are missing from Corpbank, for which its majority
owner Tsvetan Vassilev is responsible. If such money is missing,
the public must know to whom it was given, the committee says.

The committee's founders also want BNB Governor Ivan Iskrov to
say the truth about the bank as well as to "stop threatening to
sue (former Culture Minsiter, who also has a deposit at the
troubled bank) Vezhdi Rashidov or any other victims of the
Corpbank case."

Corpbank (Bulgaria's fourth largest lender) suspended all
operations on June 21, 2014 after a run by depositors left it
illiquid and on the same day it was placed by the central bank
under special supervision for a maximum of six months to allow a
thorough audit and possible restructuring. Tsvetan Vassilev,
whose Sofia-based Bromak EOOD is the majority shareholder in
Corpbank with a 50.7 per cent stake, is charged with aiding and
abetting senior executives of the bank to embezzle nearly 206
million leva from Corpbank between December 2011 and June 2014.
After being placed Interpol's Red Notice Wanted List, Vassilev
was detained by the Serbian judicial authorities on September
16. He is in Serbia, released on own recognizance and awaiting
ongoing extradition proceedings in Bulgaria. LN/MY




/МЙ/