Hoyer Named to 2nd Term has Head of European Investment Bank

By Tara Oakes

     BRUSSELS (MNI) - The European Investment Bank said Thursday that Werner

Hoyer has been reappointed as president for a new six-year term.

     Hoyer, a former German deputy foreign minister, has been in office since

2012 and will begin his new term on Jan. 1, 2018.

     The EIB, which was established in 1958 as a non-profit long-term lender

largely to EU countries, has seen rapid growth during Hoyer's tenure.

     Over the past five and a half years the Luxembourg-based bank's annual

financing has increased from E55 billion E84 billion, while annual investments

have grown from E169 billion to E287 billion, according to the EIB. 

     The increase has been spurred in party by the EU investment plan

spearheaded by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and managed by

the EIB. The Commission is hoping to extend the plan later this year by a

renewal of the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) to ensure funding

up to 2020.

     Hoyer said in a statement that "new challenges lie ahead for us, not least

coping with the loss of the United Kingdom as member of the EU bank."

     The UK is one of the EIB's biggest shareholders as well as the fifth

largest recipient of EIB loans.  

--MNI Brussels Bureau; +44 203-865-3851; email: tara.oakes@marketnews.com

--MNI Paris Bureau; tel: +33 1-42-71-55-41; email: jack.duffy@marketnews.com

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