A minutes work - not even in a week and a 400Euro loss

It was back to Jávea Branch of Banco Gallego today (Friday 13th), having written yesterday to the Compliance Dept mcfernandez@bancogallego.com and received no reply, rather like the eMail I sent to the BNPParibas Press Officer that was also ignored.

Luis told me that, even though I told the bank a week ago to sell 51,000 Euros worth of whatever we had (he said they were not 'shares' but then referred to them as 'shares' himself, but I put it down to the fact that English is not his first language) they were still waiting for a potential buyer. I said I'd forwarded to them an eMail from Nordea dated last Friday, indicating that the sale should only take minutes, and for a value of about 64 centimos on each Euro I'd placed with BNPParibas. They claimed not to have received the forwarded message so I sent it again, after I returned home.

Luis tried to explain the Bank's procedure (as if they had one) and I had to remind him that, a week ago, he said he had never sold what I had before! Luis said if Nordea knew of a buyer, he'd like to know, because Banco Gallego could not find one.

Luis - no sign of Branch Director Moises again today - did authorise me to be given a copy of the Branch instruction to Manuel Sancho Muñoz de Verger and Andrés Martinez, to sell 51,000 of what we held (seems they are 'participaciones') and Pedro said he'd been assured that there would be a phone call as soon as a buyer surfaced.

After I'd re-sent the Nordea eMail indicating 'sale in minutes at 64%' I asked Nordea in Luxembourg for their comment on the nonsense I'd been told by Banco Gallego, and received the reply: I just talked to our broker. There is BID prices and volumes. It looks like he could sell 50t @ 62,75 straight away. I don't know what to tell you.

I forwarded those words and the name, eMail address and phone and fax numbers of the writer to Banco Gallego, and wait to see what happens. Our new vehicle still sits in Badalona waiting for Banco Gallego to generate some funds, and the money we instructed them to sell on 5th November when Nordea said it was worth 64% has dropped to 63,21% - a loss of more than 400 Euros. Yes, I know, the dithering by Banco Gallego could have cost us much more, if the market had been more volatile.