Minos Zombanakis
 Minos Zombanakis  (banker) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | July 1926 Crete, Greece |
| Died | 2019 (Age 93) |
| Nationality | Greek |
Greek banker who developed tools to internationalize financial markets from the 1960s. | |
Minos Zombanakis was a Greek financial speculator who developed the area of libor loans, sowing the seeds for London to boom as a global financial center and the internationalization of financial markets. He attended the 1991 Bilderberg meeting.
Background
He was born in 1926, the son of a small-town mayor on the island of Crete.[1]
Early career
At the outbreak of the Second World War, he worked in a British officers' mess where he picked up a valuable knowledge of English.
When the British took over after the Germans retreated in 1944, and the Greek Civil War started, he got a job liaising between the postwar UK-US effort and the Greek central bank. Though he possessed only a modest accounting qualification, he was taken on by the Bank and posted as their representative in Washington DC.[1]
Zombanakis talked his way into Harvard University in the late 1950s, to attend graduate courses and was awarded a Masters in Public Administration.[2]
He began a career in commercial banking as the Mediterranean representative for Manufacturers Hanover Trust from the late 1950s to the early 1970s as their representative in Rome, the Middle East and, later, in London, where he opened the bank’s office in 1968'.[2]
Libor
The Libor (London Interbank Offer Rate) came about as a way to lend money to cash-strapped companies and countries that wanted to avoid a more highly regulated U.S. market
The 1960s were a period when postwar currency controls put serious obstacles in the way of international finance, challenging bankers to find ways around. In particular, the US imposed a tax on corporate borrowing, which drove loan dollars abroad, notably to London. Zombanakis was struck by the large pools of "eurodollars" floating around. He also noticed growing international demand for loans that went beyond the small, short-term amounts being offered by banks in traditional ways.
He devised a means of matching supply and demand by putting together syndicates of dollar banks under a common contractual umbrella, pricing the loans using a formula based on the banks’ cost of funds: the Libor. He launched the first such loan — $80m for Iran — in 1969 and, despite warnings that it was bound to fail because syndicates would crack up, it proved a huge success and was swiftly imitated by other banks. Within a short time, loans multiplied and amounts rose into the hundreds of millions of dollars, far outstripping the eurobond market, which was also gathering pace at the time.[1]
Junta advisor
He advice the military junta, and also fellow Cretan PMs Konstantinos Mitsotakis, Andreas Papandreou and Konstantinos Karamanlis.[1][2]
According to Financial Times, he had "a rich personal life".[1]
Event Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilderberg/1991 | 6 June 1991 | 9 June 1991 | Germany Baden-Baden Steigenberger Hotel Badischer Hof | The 39th Bilderberg, 114 guests |
