Page 13 - bne magazine September 2023

bne September 2023 Companies & Markets I 13
Overall non-performing loans stand at 6%, which Picker says is below average for the industry. The bank is also the market leader in mortgage lending with a book worth MDL3bn.
“The bank is highly profitable, and we have plenty of capital available,” added Picker.
Ukraine fallout
While the lender is slowly emerging from the laundromat scandal, the wider financial sector is having to deal with the fallout from the war in nearby Ukraine and the country’s bid to reduce its energy dependency on Russia. Inflation was very high at over 30% but now it has come down to less than 13%.
“People were blaming the government for inflation and high prices and the opposition were arguing that the coun- try should not have broken up with our only friend Russia,” explains Picker. “In reality, I think very few people would go with Russia and about 90% are in favour of the EU.”
Last year, the bank's shareholders decided to skip the distri- bution of dividends and retain the net profit of MDL716.4mn ($37.6mn) as undistributed profit to ease the negative economic impact from the war in Ukraine.
Moldova’s central bank had been insistent that Moldind- conbank be sold to a foreign investor as part of a clean-up of the financial system backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other donors. Bulgarian fund Doverie United Holding stepped in and acquired an initial 64% stake in 2019 before raising its share to 78% in late 2021.
Doverie are primarily involved in Bulgaria's soft pharma sector. They had previously been blocked in Bulgaria from acquiring a
bank in their home market before they started to look overseas.
“They are a good shareholder,” said Picker. “The owners are involved in mainly pharma and were interested in entering financial markets, but they are not influencing anything, which is one of the reasons that I decided to come here. I don’t want to work for a pocket bank for someone because that usually ends badly for the management.”
Last rodeo?
A student of Polish and Russian as well as law in Salzburg, Picker’s father-in-law thought he was a communist due
his interest in Slavic languages. A polyglot who speaks 10 languages, Picker instinctively makes a big effort to under- stand the local customs and cultures of wherever he is posted.
Picker began his career in finance at Bank Austria in before moving to rival Erste Bank. In 1994, he was working for Austrian lender Creditanstalt, later acquired by Italy’s UniCredit, when he was seconded to its Russian operation, where he weathered the 1998 ruble default as its chief risk officer.
After five years in Russia, he was seconded as chief operating officer to the Polish subsidiary BPK before being appointed as chief executive of the Serbian lender HVB Serbia & Montene- gro, which later became Unicreditbank Serbia.
Now aged 62, Picker is not sure whether Moldindconbank will be his last rodeo after more than 30 years working as a senior banker across of kaleidoscope of countries.
“Our kids are now grown up, working and earning their own money but my wife always say she didn’t read the small print when we first moved abroad,” he said.
Banana crates from Ecuador now ‘usual suspect’ for Turkey's cocaine police
Akin Nazli in Belgrade
Turkish drug squad police officers have seized 11 kilo- grams of cocaine found in banana containers shipped from Ecuador to Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
The find was made at Turkey's Mersin Port, the provincial direc- torate of security in Mersin said on July 26. It was not the first such find announced this year. In April, the directorate said that its forces seized 98kg of cocaine in banana crates. On that occasion also, the drugs were said to have come from Ecuador.
In January, the directorate said that its officers found 45kg of cocaine in potato containers. This time the shipment was from Egypt.
"Exhibit Q503, Your Honour." / Sandra Fauconnier, cc-by-sa 1.0
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