Bank of Valletta has made ex-gratia payments to investors in the La Valette Multi-Manager Property Fund which were identified during a review carried out by the independent professional services firm engaged by the Malta Financial Services Authority.

The Bank had already reached settlement agreements with 99 per cent of the investors in the Fund. Without prejudice to its legal position, the Bank agreed, however, to pay €1 per share (less any payments already made by the Bank) to those investors who could not be determined by the independent professional services firm engaged by the MFSA to be “experienced investors” according to the Fund Prospectus, due to insufficient information or evidence.

The Bank is writing to all the investors in the Fund to notify them of the outcome of the independent review.

“The Bank has cooperated fully with the independent review and now that these payments – including the ex-gratia payment of €0.75 per share made unilaterally by the Bank in June 2011 - have been made, we welcome the opportunity to close this issue.

“In the meantime, the Bank engaged an international financial services consultancy firm to carry out a comprehensive review of its procedures to learn from the experience and to benchmark against best-in-class standards. This enabled us to move forward to ensure that we could offer our customers a better service. This has resulted in a number of procedural changes, considerable staff training, and also organisational changes, such as the opening of Investment Centres which offer our customers the chance to seek expert advice in a more discreet and professional environment,” BOV’s Chief Executive Officer Charles Borg said.

Should customers have any queries they are to contact their branch manager or the Bank’s Customer Service Centre on 21312020.