Only one week after paying 2.2 billion euros, Erste Bank has already made the first changes in the BCR management yesterday, removing the heads of the retail, risk management and operations departments from office.
Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR)'s Supervisory Board headed by Andreas Treichl, Erste Bank's chief executive, himself decided to bring a Czech national to head the retail operations and replace Natalita Hurduc. The executive vice-president will be Martin Skopek, 39, who is leaving a similar position he has held with Ceska Sporitelna, the largest bank in the Czech Republic, also controlled by Erste, for six years.
Skopek says that regarding products, customer demand and purchasing power, the Romanian market reminds him of the situation in the Czech Republic in 1997-1998. He has no intention of relocating his team from Prague to Bucharest.
"For every segment I think needs changing, I will bring small groups of experts selected from the entire Erste Group. I'm looking for people with expertise in cards, micro-enterprises and service quality," says Skopek.
Before being chosen to take over the position of retail vice-president of BCR, Skopek had been courted by Czech investment fund PPF, which bought 20% in Romexterra and is looking for people to manage its acquisitions in the region.
The Austrians appointed a second vice-president yesterday, Oana Petrescu, recruited from Ernst & Young Romania to handle planning and IT operations. She replaces Ilie Mihai. Petrescu, 37, had previously been head of the consultancy and risk department and head of the financial service division. She started out at the late Bancorex, in 1992, before moving to the local office of the former consultancy Arthur Andersen in 1995, taken over by Ernst & Young in 2002.
The executive vice-president position held by Petre Preda, head of operations, is still vacant for the time being.
On the other hand, the Supervisory Board appointed the financial manager of the Erste Bank Hungary, Helmuth Hintringer, to the position of consultant of the executive board. He will also focus on risk management at BCR.
As announced on various occasions, Andreas Treichl keeps Nicolae Danila as chief executive. Two of the existing executive vice-presidents have passed the Austrians' tests. They are Dan Bunea, member of the Executive Board in charge of Treasury and Capital Markets and Jean Andronie, the executive vice-president in charge of corporate clients.
The vice-presidents appointed yesterday, Martin Skopek and Oana Petrescu are waiting for endorsement from the National Bank before taking office.
As for as the three former vice-presidents Natalita Hurduc, Ilie Mihai and Petre Preda, they are to be offered other positions within the bank, as stipulated in the Labour Code.
Although having had to wait 10 months since winning the race for BCR's privatisation before taking control of the bank, the Austrians made use of their time in between, testing all the managers during the summer and preparing plans to restructure BCR in accordance with the Erste organisational model.
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