April 15 (SeeNews) - State-owned Bulgarian Development Bank said on Wednesday that it has appointed Jivko Todorov, who had been chief financial officer (CFO) at local First Investment Bank (Fibank) [BUL:5F4] until last month, as its new chief executive officer (CEO).
Todorov served as CFO of Fibank in the 2014-2020 period, and CFO of Alpha Bank Bulgaria in 2012-2014, the BDB said in a statement.
Last week, Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borissov said he has requested the economy minister to seek the resignation of the BDB management over a controversial 75 million levs ($41.6 million/38.3 million euro) loan extended to Sveti Georgi Group.
Sveti Georgi Group had assets of just 57,000 levs at the end of 2018, according to its latest annual financial statement. The company is fully owned by private individual Yulian Tsamparov, according to commercial register data. Tsamparov is a member of the executive board of debt collection company S.G. Group.
The disbursement of the loan was severely criticised by both opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and centre-right Democratic Bulgaria.
The incumbents are stealing public money under the disguise of anti-crisis measures, BSP leader Kornelia Ninova said last week.
"Taxpayers' money is being used to finance a debt collection company at a moment when millions of Bulgarians are going into debt; the budget is financing dubious groups so that they can buy out people's credits and harass them," Democratic Bulgaria said in a statement.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)
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