The Central Bank (CBCG) revoked the approvals for the performance of the duties of members of the Board of Directors of Prva Banka Nataša Martinović and Stanislava Subotić, due to established omissions in the performance of their duties.
This is what the CBCG answered to the questions of "Vijesti", which is why they did not agree to the appointment of some of the members of the bank's management.
We are talking about the candidates who were proposed by the majority shareholder of Prva banka Aco Đukanović.
Before this decision, the management board of Prva banka had a total of three members, so that management body has been left with only one member for a month - Milan Perović, which is why it cannot function.
"Acting within the framework of the prescribed powers and performing the supervisory function in accordance with the law, while taking into account that Tarik Telaćević does not perform the function of the president of the Board of Directors of this bank as of December 28, 12, the CBCG took measures and actions against Nataša Martinović and Stanislava Subotić, depriving them of their authorization to perform the function of a member of the Board of Directors of this bank, due to established omissions in the performance of their duties, as a result of which they ceased to meet the requirements for membership in the Board of Directors, prescribed by the Law on Credit Institutions," stated the reply from the CBCG.
The members of the Management Board are elected by the Supervisory Board of the bank, but it is necessary to obtain approval for these appointments from the Central Bank of Serbia.
Telaćević and Pažin left on the same day
On the same day, December 28 last year, Telaćević resigned from the Bank's Management Board and Zoran Pažin from the Supervisory Board. Then the Supervisory Board scheduled a Shareholders' Meeting for February 9 (today) with an agenda for the election of a new Supervisory Board, which would then elect the management board.
The second largest shareholder of Prva banka, the state-owned Elektroprivreda, with almost 20 percent of the shares, was not informed in time about the convening of the Assembly, so the deadline has passed for it to propose the replacement of its current member in the Supervisory Board and to appoint another, to which it has the right. Prva banka rejected EPCG's request to postpone the Assembly.
In the past more than a month, Prva banka has been sending the CBCG the names of several candidates to fill these two boards.
Two candidates did not meet the legal requirement
Nataša Martinović, Radomir Radunović and Edin Ćeranić ran for the board of directors, and Neda Ivović, Zoran Đikanović and Radomir Rudanović for the Supervisory Board.
"The Central Bank rejected the request for approval for the election of Nataša Martinović as the president of the Board of Directors of Prva banka, as well as the request for the election of Radomir Rudanović as a member of the Board of Directors of this bank. After, in accordance with the law, the decision-making procedure was carried out, and based on the submitted and other available information, the requests for approval were rejected because it was determined that the proposed persons do not meet the prescribed conditions for membership in the Management Board of the credit institution", stated the CBCG in to the answer to the questions of "Vijesti".
In the end, the CBCG issued approvals for the election of Edin Ćeranić and Zoran Đikanović as members of the Board of Directors, as well as approvals for the election of Neda Ivović and Zoran Đikanović as members of the Supervisory Board of this bank.
If the Shareholders' Assembly today appoints Ivović and Đikanović as new members of the Supervisory Board, that board will immediately be able to elect Ćeranić and Đikanović to the Management Board.
According to unofficial information from "Vijesti", Nataša Martinović's candidacy for the president of the bank's Board of Directors was rejected due to the CBCG's assessment that, after failing to fulfill the duties of a member of the bank's Board of Directors in the previous period, she does not meet the legal requirement.
According to the same sources, Rudanović's candidacy for a member of the bank's Board of Directors was rejected due to the assessment that he does not meet the legal requirement after failing to perform his duties as the director of the Private Banking Department in Crnogorka Kommercialja Banka and resigning from that bank. According to "Vijesti" information, Rudanović was fired from CKB after it was discovered that several employees from his department participated in defrauding clients, which the bank later had to compensate with multi-million sums.
"Vijesti" contacted Martinović and Rudanović yesterday, stating in messages why they needed them, but they did not respond.
Uncertain moves by EPCG
For now, the further moves of Elektroprivreda, which the bank's management played because it did not inform them about the scheduling of the Shareholders' Assembly, are also uncertain, which is why they could not exercise their right as shareholders to replace their representative in the Supervisory Board of Velizar Čolović and get another seat.
According to "Vijesti" information, EPCG is not satisfied with the way Čolović represents them, which is why on February 2 they requested that their new representative be Miro Vračar, advisor to the executive director of EPCG, as well as that their second member of the bank's Supervisory Board be Marina Šljivančanin, who is the head of the Directorate for Finance in EPCG. The first bank replied that they had sent their candidacies late, and that the meeting could not be postponed.
EPCG remains able to request a new extraordinary Shareholders' Meeting, but in order to re-elect a new supervisory board, it is necessary for someone from the current one to resign. The state energy company can again request that Prva banka return six million euros of the so-called subordinated loan.
Banks include this type of loan when calculating capital adequacy and other important parameters for their work, and their withdrawal before the deadline can only be approved by the Central Bank, and only if it would not endanger that bank.
At the beginning of 2022, EPCG requested that Prva banka return this money, because it needs it for announced investment projects.
Prva Bank delayed sending this request to the CBCG. In September 2022, the then governor of the CBCG, Radoje Žugić, rejected the EPCG's request and forbade Prva Banka to return the money to the state-owned company.
Serious problems before the new management, accumulated loss of 33 million
The bank's new management faces serious problems because at the end of last year, an attempt to sell the bank to Serbian businessman Davor Matsura failed, while the accumulated loss of the bank, according to the nine-month report from September last year, reached 33 million euros.
On the financial statements of Prva banka for 2022, the audit firm BDO gave a qualified opinion in May of last year with the assessment that there are "significant uncertainties that cause significant doubt regarding the bank's ability to continue operations", as well as that the continuation of operations "in the foreseeable future future will depend on the support of the bank's shareholders and their plans for recapitalization".
The management of the bank now needs to find a new buyer or for the existing shareholders to recapitalize the bank.
Lawyer Neda Ivović, who was proposed as a new member of the Supervisory Board, has been in the management of the bank since 2012. She also represented the interests of Aco Đukanović when he was a shareholder in the coal mine. In several disputes, she was his lawyer as well as his brother, former President of Montenegro and DPS Milo Đukanović. She is also a lecturer at the University of Donja Gorica (UDG), which is co-owned by Milo Đukanović.
Zoran Đikanović is a candidate for a new member of the Supervisory and Management Boards, which is legally possible. From 2000 to 2022, he was the head of the Commission for Securities, and he is also a lecturer and associate professor at the UDG.
Edin Ćeranić, who from 2016 to 2021 was the director of the sector for business with legal entities at NLB Bank, and then was in the management of Lovćen Bank, was proposed as a new member of the bank's Management Board.
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