Newly acquired Maltese private bank inaugurated

The official re-launch of the newly acquired Mediterranean Bank Plc, the Malta-based private bank, was held last week at a reception held at St John’s Cavalier, Embassy of the Sovereign Order of St John, in Valletta.

Mediterranean Bank was ac­quired in July by AnaCap Financial Partners, the European private equity firm that specialises in the financial services sector.

Mediterranean Bank was founded in 2005 to serve Maltese and international high net worth individuals. Since acquiring the bank AnaCap has started the process of improving the bank’s operational performance, building up its capabilities in analytics, information and risk management and adding to its capital.

The bank has appointed Francis J. Vassallo, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Malta, as its new chairman and Mark Watson, a former co-head of Global Credit Markets of Citigroup, as its new CEO. As the Governor of the Central Bank of Malta from 1993 to 1997 Mr Vassallo was responsible for bringing the regulation of the Maltese financial services sector in line with EU standards. As part of this process he was a co-founder of the Board of Governors of the Malta Financial Services Authority. Prior to this he held senior positions with Chase Manhattan Bank. Mr Vassallo is also a former chairman of the Malta Development Corporation (1990 to 2000) and of BAWAG Bank Malta.

Mr Watson spent 22 years with Citigroup/Salomon Brothers where he became co-head of Global Credit Markets. He was instrumental in helping to establish Citigroup’s fixed-income division as one of the most successful teams in that market.

Previously he was chosen as one of the top 100 most important bankers in the UK by a national newspaper.

Mediterranean Bank is located on St Barbara Bastion, Valletta.