The $917 million-asset company disclosed in a regulatory filing Wednesday
that it asked Trifon Houvardas to step down. He resigned on March
4.
BayFirst said, prior to his resignation, Houvardas had guaranteed
a loan to a bank borrower. The borrower defaulted on the payments due on the
loan and, at BayFirst’s request, Houvardas and his co-guarantor satisfied their
guarantees to the bank.
BayFirst said that, following a request, it assigned the defaulted
promissory note and related loan documents to Houvardas and his co-guarantor.
The dispute arose when Houvardas and the co-guarantor asked BayFirst
to affirm that the loan had an outstanding balance at the time of the document
assignment. The bank said it “could not truthfully make that statement” because
Houvardas and his co-guarantor had paid the loan in full.
BayFirst claims that, in a complaint against the borrower, Houvardas
and his co-guarantor made disparaging statements about the bank. The bank, which did not disclose the comments Houvardas allegedly made, said
it asked him to resign as a director after he refused to retract the
statements.
The bank said it provided Houvardas a copy of the disclosure made
in the regulatory filing and “an opportunity to provide a letter stating
whether he agrees with such disclosure and, if not, the respects in which he
does not agree.” Houvardas had not responded to the request before the filing
was made.
Houvardas, a director since 2013, is a Florida real estate broker and developer.
No comments:
Post a Comment