About

Eurobank has one of the largest and most highly specialised in-house legal departments in Greece and Cyprus, and includes the capital markets, investment banking, wealth management and strategic and international activities legal division comprising 18 highly-qualified individuals led by George Lekkas, a legal professional with over 25 years of experience in the banking sector. In addition to him, Lekkas named other particularly key team members as Alexia Kefalogianni, Loukia Mavragani and Dimitra Grekou for their depth of experience with the company and Matina Kagkelari, Thaleia Niskou and Eva Barbopoulou – with all of these having amassed over 15 years with Eurobank – for their specialist skill and tireless work ethic. Lekkas reports that ‘the most important changes to our team in the last two years were the constant effort to achieve excellence in providing legal services to the Bank and our continuing effort to build team spirit’, evidence of a team that has been operating at an extremely high level for some time as a result of continuous incremental improvements, rather than through dramatic changes to its organisation. Major projects undertaken and completed successfully include the January 2018 redemption of preferences shares held by the Hellenic Republic of a total nominal value of approximately €950m, the issuance of Class A and Class B Notes in aggregate nominal amounts of €591m and € 219m by Astarti Hellas Designated Activity Company in December 2018 and the assignment by Eurobank Group entities of non-performing unsecured consumer loan portfolios in Romania and Bulgaria of gross book value of €170m and €72m respectively. Regulatory compliance has also been a major team preoccupation, with the team achieving excellent results in the implementation of regulations MiFID II, PRIIPS, (EU) 648/2012 EMIR and (EU) 2014/91 in recent months, a major priority for a company at the head of financial world. When discussing the team culture that has allowed it to achieve these and many other feats, Lekkas was emphatic: ‘Our team’s culture can be sum up in devotion to our target, which is ultimately to deliver value to the Bank. This culture is developed through the effective combination of our talents and expertise, through our ability to progress in a changing legal environment and, last but not least, though our capacity to understand Bank’s legal needs and provide reliable legal services in order to efficiently satisfy those needs’.