The agony of what had been considered to be a pearl among banks – Corporate Commercial Bank /CCB/, lasted 4 months. The Central Bank of Bulgaria /BNB/ finally got the courage or was simply forced to admit the collapse of the bank and revoked its license. It all happened after a series of painful and controversial moves, scandals, sensations and unconvincing explanations and excuses, where the BNB was also involved in a silent and fearful manner. The audit results a week ago showed such a dramatic situation within CCB that any will of the BNB to heal it, restructure it and get it back into the game simply evaporated. From now we are to witness painful court procedures, declaring bankruptcy, also efforts of the quaestors to sell the enterprise or its assets and attempts of those, who graved their money to get compensations… People with guaranteed deposits of up to EUR 100,000 will have to go through complicated bureaucratic procedures, in order for their money to be refunded. Above all, current governor of BNB - Ivan Iskrov, will be replaced, as many blame him for the chaotic actions of the central bank in this critical situation. The most important thing that follows, however, is the huge price, which will have to be paid for the collapse of the bank giant and the criminal activities of its owner, Banker Tsvetan Vassilev. No one else will do that, but the state with the help of another public debt – meaning tax payers. One gets the drink, another one pays the bill - a notorious Bulgarian saying…

It was only till the start of the summer when all institutions in charge, headed by the totally independent and fully respected Central Bank assured on a regular basis the Bulgarian and foreign audience that the processes in the banking sphere were monitored carefully and professionally and that everything in the sector was perfect and prosperous. The naïve Bulgarians were struggling to deposit their humble savings in different banks and the total sum of deposits reached the impressive EUR 20 bln. A serious part of these savings went into the vaults of CCB, which often appeared to offer the greatest interests. The ranking of the institution in the 4^th position among all banks was due not only to that, but also to its strong presence in the public sector. It turned out that dozens and hundreds of governmental, municipal, state owned and other public administrations, companies and organizations were clients of that bank, thinking of its allegedly enormous funds.

The financial expansion of CCB would feed up the expansion of the empire, controlled by its sole majority owner Tsvetan Vassilev and so the political tentacles of the group were spread. In a gradual and silent manner, obviously under the agreeable sight of powerful political forces, the banker appeared to get under his control /directly or via dummies/ the largest producer and trader of tobacco in Bulgaria, one of the three major telecoms, the biggest national technology chain store, a long list of periodic printed editions, TVs, yet another bank and many, many more… It all brought lots of fans and supporters to the grouping, but also many enemies. Different accusations were voiced to media at different stages of the rise of Tsvetan Vasilev, doubtful deals were mentioned, along with connections with very powerful political circles… All those attacks and hints were obviously taken by Vassilev via the prism of “Too big business to be failed”, i.e. as insignificant. Up till the moment, when Vassilev and his powerful political partner Delyan Peevski broke their relationship. The reason still remains a mystery, but it is a fact that the road to the abyss was then ready for the empire of Tsvetan Vassilev. It simply turned out that even in Bulgaria, with its corrupt political and legal system, a shady marriage between big business and big policy is something calamitous. If the death of a bank brings in some profit, it would be the lesson and morals that we have now, in order not to allow the same thing to happen again in the future.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev