(Business in Cameroon) - Formerly the managing director of BICEC, Alain Ripert has been promoted to the position of administrator of BICEC and member of the board of CEPAC in charge of the overseas departments.

The news of his departure was already circulating at the end of BICEC’s board meeting on March 23, 2018, but there was no clarification on where he would land. Nonetheless, he will manage BICEC until the end of August 2018.

The departing managing director is being replaced by Sylvain Faure, the current president for market development of BPCE international, the entity to which subsidiaries such as BICEC belongs. The appointment of Sylvain Faure occurs while the group is implementing an exit strategy in Africa and according to analysts; the operation with BICEC is the most complicated for the French Group.

Let’s note that Alain Ripert achieved his goals to put BICEC on track. Indeed, speaking during the launch of the renovation works at the headquarters in Douala, he saluted the work of his collaborators and team to whom the group realized a turnover of CFA60 billion and a net profit of CFA10 billion in 2017.

This performance offers him a glorious exit following the discovery of a fraud scheme, which is still being investigated, within the group two years ago. The bank has not yet published the whole figure of its operation in 2017 so it is difficult to assess the real extent of the performance that year.

Idriss Linge