Bank Of Cyprus CEO Hourican To Leave In September As Loss Cut In 2018

LONDON (Alliance News) - Bank of Cyprus Holdings PLC said Monday Chief Executive Officer John Hourican has handed in his six months notice and will be leaving the bank in September.

The lender said it has started a process to find a suitable candidate to replace Hourican. Bank of Cyprus said he is leaving to "pursue a commercial opportunity" in the UK.

Shares in the Cypriot lender were up 8.9% Monday morning at EUR1.41 each.

Separately, Bank of Cyprus said its loss for 2018 significantly narrowed compared to 2017 amid reduced credit losses. Pretax loss narrowed to EUR34.8 million from EUR479.2 million the year before.

Bank of Cyprus's net interest income decreased 23% to EUR419.1 million from EUR543.9 million. The lender's total revenue decreased 11% to EUR984.7 million from EUR1.10 billion in 2017.

"This has been an important year in the transformation of the bank and one in which we have made significant progress on a number of fronts against our objective of balance sheet de-risking and refocusing the business in supporting the growing Cypriot economy," said outgoing Chief Executive Hourican.

During the period, Bank of Cyprus booked EUR340.9 million credit losses to cover credit risk on loans & advances to customers, just over a third of the EUR953.5 million taken in 2017. The lender's non-performing loans almost halved to EUR4.8 billion from EUR8.8 billion in 2017 and are down 68% since 2014.

Bank of Cyprus net loans & advances to customers decreased 25% in 2018 to EUR10.92 billion from EUR14.60 billion the year before. Total new lending was flat at EUR2.23 billion with new lending in Cyprus, however, increasing to EUR1.87 billion.

Customer deposits decreased 5.7% to EUR16.84 billion from EUR17.85 billion.

The lender's net interest margin fell to 2.48% at the end of 2018 versus 3.10% the year prior. Bank of Cyprus' cost to income ratio ended 2018 at 51% compared to 44% at the end of 2017.

Bank of Cyprus CET1 ratio increased to 15.4% in 2018 from 12.1% in 2017.

Hourican continued: "Balance sheet repair was accelerated through the agreement for the sale of EUR2.7 billion non-performing loans in Project Helix. We have made good progress towards completion, including syndicating down the bank's participation in the senior debt to EUR50 million from the initial level of EUR450 million and in so doing, significantly de-risking the bank's residual exposure to the portfolio sold."