BOC’s Ackermann congratulates Ross for Trump cabinet nomination

BANK of Cyprus chairman Josef Ackermann said that the appointment of the lender’s vice-chairman as US secretary of commerce by president elect Donald Trump was “an excellent choice”.

Ackerman, the former Deutsche Bank chief executive officer, said that Wilbur Ross, a billionaire who made a huge profit from his investment in Bank of Ireland two years ago and led a group of investors into Bank of Cyprus when the latter carried out a €1bn capital increase a year and a half after it turned depositor money into equity, made a “tremendous contribution to successful turnaround” of Bank of Cyprus, the island’s largest lender.

The Swiss banker, who joined Bank of Cyprus in November 2014, months after Ross’s entry into the bank, was commenting in a statement issued by Bank of Cyprus on Tuesday following Ross’s nomination by Trump as secretary of commerce.

While for the time a question mark lingers over the future of Ross’s investment in Bank of Cyprus, the Cyprus Business Mail understands that the bank’s vice-chairman is likely to place his investment under a “blind trust” during his term in Trump’s cabinet. Ross was not immediately available for a comment.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.