ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's Eurobank will name former deputy CEO Nikos Karamouzis as chairman while Fokion Karavias, a general manager, is set to become the new chief executive, the bank announced on Sunday.
The change was prompted by former Chief Executive Christos Megalou's decision to accept a position at Fairfax Financial Holdings, the Toronto-based fund that holds a 13.6 percent stake in Eurobank, one person close to the bank's management said.
In a statement, Eurobank said both Megalou and Chairman Panayotis-Aristidis Thomopoulos had resigned. All other board positions remained unchanged. It gave no further details.
The decision comes after the deputy prime minister in Greece's new left-wing government, Yannis Dragasakis, met shareholders on Friday to discuss the bank's future.
However, Dragasakis said the management change had not been done at the prompting of the government.
"From what I heard, they proceeded with a management change on their own initiative, which we welcome," he told Greece's Mega TV in an interview.
Eurobank, which is 35 percent owned by Greece's bank bailout fund and 13.6 percent owned by Canada's Fairfax, is one of Greece's four major lenders who have been squeezed by an outflow of deposits in recent weeks as political tensions rose.
Like other Greek banks, Eurobank stock has been battered since the victory of the left-wing Syriza party of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras amid fears that a standoff between Athens and its European partners may leave the banks cut off from European Central Bank funding.