New BOV Chairman: Frederick Mifsud Bonnici?

The new chairman of the Bank of Valletta appointed by government is expected to be Frederick Mifsud Bonnici. The post has been offered also to Gordon Cordina who refused it as a general election is so close. Richard Cachia Caruana had also been mentioned for the post as he will be stepping down from his post as Malta’s EU Permanent Representative as a motion calling for his resignation passed in parliament on 18 June 2012,

Fredrick Mifsud Bonnici was the Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) partner in charge of the audit of the La Valette Funds Sicav plc and who in terms of Article 18 of the Investment Services Act was supposed to have alerted the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) during all the years between 2005 and 2010 with the 9 breaches of the investment restrictions of the Prospectus of the Property Fund. 

When called upon at the Annual General Meeting to inform the shareholders present whether PwC did signal such breaches or not, PwC always gave a “no comment” reply.

So if Frederick Mifsud Bonnici is appointed chairman of BOV his choice will raise questions about how appropriate it is.

The BOV chairmanship, where government is the main shareholder, has been vacant since Roderick Chalmers resigned for personal reasons.

Since 12 May 2011 the BOV has been sanctioned by the MFSA at least six times and fined a total amount of €726,140 for letting down pensioners and small inexperienced investors by luring them into investing in schemes designed for professional investors.