Probe on bond sale widens further
A government investigation into the purchase of an overpriced bond from a civil servants’ pension fund will widen and branch out into other social security funds involved in similar transactions, said Capital Market Commission President Alexis Pilavios yesterday. The Civil Servants’ Auxiliary Fund (TEADY) was recently found to have paid 5 million euros too much for a government bond from brokerage house Acropolis. The case has raised questions about inexperienced pension fund managers being in charge of massive amounts of pensioners’ money and falling victims to brokerages. «We have already started checks on all brokerages for transactions relating to the last five years,» Pilavios told an economic parliamentary committee. «From the first pieces of evidence we have come across, violations have been committed by other brokerages in the past,» he said. Finance Minister Giorgos Alogoskoufis called brokerage firms «greedy» on Wednesday and acknowledge some fund managers are inexperienced. Checks by authorities so far have found further transactions between Acropolis and different pension funds, with TEADY the brokerage’s best customer. «The company (Acropolis) operated in a way that harmed the fund’s interests and had the gall to make announcements and send documents to TEADY that said the transaction was profitable,» added Pilavios.
