Eduardo Stock da Cunha has been chosen by the Government and the Bank of Portugal to replace Vítor Bento at the helm of Novo Banco.
The formal announcement was made on Sunday afternoon and it will be up to the new man to choose replacements for the departed financial manager, and vice-president, should he want one.
The well-respected Vítor Bento, his finance director Joao Moreira Rato and deputy Chief Executive José Honorio all resigned with immediate affect before the start of the weekend, giving the Bank of Portugal two days in which to announce its selection of Stock Eduardo da Cunha for the top job.
The top level resignations at Novo Banco were due to a conflict between the Bank of Portugal which is in a hurry to sell off Novo Banco, and the job that Banto and his team had been brought in to do, which was to prepare for a medium term sale of Novo Banco and in the meantime concentrate on streamlining the systems, and building up staff moral and shareholder confidence.
The second bone of contention was the Bank of Portugal’s decision to sell Novo Banco in full to one company, Bento favoured floating the Novo Banco on the open market when the time was right as the best way forward for creditors.
Eduardo Stock da Cunha has been was working with António Horta Osório at Lloyds and was approached last week when it became clear that the Bank of Portugal’s Carlos Costa and Novo Banco’s Vítor Bento could no longer work in tandem.
Eduardo Stock da Cunha is a 51 year old economics graduate with almost 30 years experience in the banking industry and was working at Lloyds having left Santander in the United States.
He is a Santander man and was part of the team that founded Santander Portugal, he worked with Nuno Amado who currently leads Millennium BCP, and with the current chairman of Santander, António Vieira Monteiro.
