The Supervisory Board of Ukraine’s largest bank has appointed the Austrian Gerhard Bosch to be its new chief executive, the bank’s press service announced on May 27.
The appointment is a legal victory for PrivatBank, whose search for a new head had been halted by the Kyiv Commercial Court following a lawsuit by the bank’s labor union. The union complained about the closed nature of the competition and the court issued an injunction blocking the selection until the lawsuit could be resolved.
On May 27, the Northern Commercial Court of Appeal lifted the ban. Bosch will begin his new role once he is confirmed by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
“He has successfully led large bank transformation projects including privatization initiatives,” the bank said in a statement, describing Bosch. It declined to comment further until his confirmation.
Bosch has worked in the banking sphere for 35 years.
He has been with Raiffeisen Bank Aval since March 2006, initially serving as the deputy chairman of the management board of Raiffeisen Central bank. He was promoted to first deputy chairman of the management board of Raiffeisen Bank Aval in November 2010.
Bosch will succeed Petr Krumphanzl who has served as PrivatBank’s CEO for three years until his contract ended on Jan. 23, 2021. Anna Samarina, the deputy chairwoman of the management board, has been serving as the bank’s acting head in the meantime.
One of Krumphanzl’s main tasks was protecting the bank’s interests in numerous court cases against its former owners, billionaire oligarchs Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov and their allies.
Bosch will inherit this task and help prepare PrivatBank for privatization, which Samarina expects by 2024.
Privatbank has a complicated history. Before its nationalization in December 2016, Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov ran the bank like a Ponzi scheme, lending money to their own companies. The NBU and auditors eventually found a $5.5 billion hole in the bank’s balance.
Since nationalization, PrivatBank has become the most profitable banking institution in the country.
