Head Of Greek Debt Office Replaced By Former Goldman Investment Banker

Head Of Greek Debt Office Replaced By Former Goldman Investment Banker
Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/19/2010 11:18 -0500

* Credit Suisse
* Goldman Sachs
* Greece
* Reuters



And so the tragicomic becomes surreal. Yesterday's news about the departure of the head of the debt management agency, Spyros Papanicolaou, was somewhat of a yawner, until we realized that his replacement would be none other than Petros Christodoulou, who until today was head of Private Banking and Group Treasury at the National Bank of Greece (reporting directly to the CEO of the NBG Tamvakakis), as can be seen on the org chart below. Yet was is oddest, is that Mr. Christodoulou worked not only as head of derivatives at JP Morgan but also held comparable posts at Credit Suisse, and... wait for it, Goldman Sachs... Uh, say what?

Petros' profile from Forbes:

Petros Christodoulou, born 1960, is the General Manager of Treasury, Global Markets and Private Banking. Before joining the Bank in 1998, he worked in various positions in Global Markets for Credit Suisse First Boston and for Goldman Sachs. Additionally, at JPMorgan he led the derivatives desk, followed by the short-term interest-rate trading and emerging markets division in London as Managing Director. He is a member of the Investment Committee of EH and the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research. He holds a BSc from the Athens School of Commerce and Economics and an MBA in International Financial Markets from Columbia University.

But, but, we thought it was all Goldman Sachs' fault for annihilating Greece? Wasn't it all Goldman's fault for fully (not) disclosing the terms of its nearly decade worth of swaps, which apparently were obvious to Risk magazine but oh so incomprehensible to Eurostat. Although it may all be good - it appears that Greece has found a new enemy. Reuters now reports that Greek opposition lawmakers said on Thursday that Germans should pay reparations for their World War Two occupation of Greece before criticising the country over its yawning fiscal deficits.

The fact that Greece's survival is now reliant on Germany's goodwill, seems to be lost on everyone.

We can not wait for the next installment in this ever more fascinating soap opera.