The agony of BOV shareholders – Anthony Curmi

As a BOV shareholder, in and out over a number of years, I have followed closely the bank’s ups and downs and cannot but agree with the editorial (May 7) headed ‘BOV shareholders owed an explanation’.

BOV shareholders have suffered from the losses incurred by the bank through claims it has been forced to meet in regard to its defunct Property Fund (€3.4 million plus interest and charges) and the Swedish Pension Agency case (€26.5 million).

But these losses are overshadowed by the recently announced amicable settlement of €182.5 million in connection with the Deiulemar Italian shipping group bankruptcy which resulted in a claim by the curators of €363 million against BOV, made through the Italian courts in November 2014.

I start by looking back to the bank’s 2016 report (shortly before the first signs of trouble with a trust set up for Deiulemar became public knowledge) when the then chairperson, John Cassar White, reported a pre-tax profit of €145.9 million, which included a one-time gain of €27.5 million from the acquisition of BOV’s shares in VISA Europe on its takeover by VISA Inc. The bank was then riding high paying good dividends to shareholders annually.

Those were the...