Gold Magazine March - April 2013, Issue 24 | Page 59

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The bet that
Cyprus will
return to growth
soon is a
difficult one to

win

team of over 50 professionals based in Athens and Nicosia. We have the largest and
most experienced pool of experts that can
offer these specialised advisory services at
the highest quality and competitive pricing.
Moreover, we are part of a worldwide team
of around 9,000 TAS professionals who can
bring together a unique combination of skills,
insight and experience and be readily available from day one if they are needed to work
with us on local projects. Another important
differentiator is the offering of business modelling services as part of our portfolio of TAS
services. We are a world leader in this field
with dedicated professionals in 60 countries,
including Cyprus. This month, those Cypriot
companies that accept our invitation will have
a unique opportunity to attend a free workshop on efficient decision-making through
business modelling, with case studies and
practical applications across different sectors.
Gold: You recently co-authored two articles in Gold on investing in distressed
assets. Given the current economic climate
in Cyprus, do you think this is something
that you will be seeing more of during
2013?
A.V.: I believe so, yes. As mentioned in the
articles, Cyprus is already undergoing a contraction in economic activity and things are
expected to deteriorate. The combination of a
maturing public and private “wall of debt”, a
deepening banking sector crisis, a lack of liquidity and austerity measures underway creates a toxic cocktail which will eventually lead
to a deleveraging process for banks and corporates. Inevitably, a lot of these assets will have
to be sold under distressed terms. So for some
players – mainly foreign – local distressed
asset investing may represent a powerful opportunity for growth and higher returns.
Gold: How have the local economic and
banking crises affected Ernst & Young?
A.V.: I think that in general we will start to
see the full effects of the crisis in the economy

after the Memorandum of Understanding
with the Troika is fin