Jacques de Groote (born 25 May 1927) is a Belgian

financier An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

and

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Becaus ...

Career

In the period 1973–1994, he was one of the Executive Directors of the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...

(IMF) and in the period 1973 – 1991, one of the governors of the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

(IBRD). He was then active in various international institutions, such as the

International Finance Corporation The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of ...

(IFC) and International Development Association (IDA). Traces of de Groote’s career can be found not only in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, Switzerland, the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

and Rwanda, but in many of the former East Block countries, including the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

. Jacques de Groote personifies the symbol of the IMF and

of the 1970s and 1980s.

Academic career

From July 1955 to January 1957, he was an assistant at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

. From 1963 to 1992, he taught at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Namur (Belgium) as a professor, lecturing on subjects related to money and credit theories, monetary mechanisms and current international finance issues. From 1963 to 1973, he took an extraordinary professorship at the University of Leuven. From 1957 to 1960 and from 1963 to 1965, he was an assistant professor at

Lille Catholic University Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the Nord ...

, where he taught courses in structural economics and history of economic thought. de Groote holds an MA in economics from

and a law, economics and political science degree from his alma mater at the University of Leuven.

Financier career

Jacques de Groote began his career as a financier in January 1957. In the first few months of 1960, he, as secretary, contributed to preparations for the de-colonisation of the Belgian Congo. From April 1960 to May 1963, he was an assistant to the Belgian representative at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

. In May 1963, he joined the National Bank in Belgium, where he was active in international affairs. In July 1965, he was offered the position of financial advisor to the Belgian delegation at the

OECD The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate e ...

in Paris, where he headed a number of working groups involved in reviewing the first draft of multilateral agreements guaranteeing private investments. Between March 1966 and May 1969, he was economic advisor to the government of the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he was also a financial advisor to the country’s National Bank. In 1973, de Groote became Executive Director of the IMF and World Bank. During this time, he actively supported certain African representations, working to have the IMF and the World Bank enter into closer economic cooperation with them. In addition to his work in the Congo, de Groote held the position of Director at the Research Department of the Belgian National Bank from April 1971 to November 1973. Within the IMF, where he was active until 1994, de Groote represented a group of countries that included Czechoslovakia, or, as the case may be, the Czech Republic.

MUS case

The MUS affair concerns the fraudulent privatization of MUS (Mostecká Uhelná Spolecnost), one of the principal coal mines in the Czech Republic, which took place at the end of the 1990s. After his time at the

and the IMF, de Groote began working with

Stephen Norris Steven John Norris (born 24 May 1945 in Liverpool) is a British Conservative Party politician and businessman. Norris served as Member of Parliament for Oxford East from 1983 to 1987. After narrowly losing that marginal seat in 1987 he re-ente ...

, the co-founder of the investment group

Carlyle Group The Carlyle Group is a multinational private equity, alternative asset management and financial services corporation based in the United States with $376 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, real assets, and ...

. de Groote became the president of one of Norris’s companies, Appian Group, and was a member of the Board of Directors of Appian Group. As it turned out, de Groote used the Appian Group as a screen to effect illegal purchases of stock in MUS, disguising the true identity of the buyers who were, not the Appian Group, but five Czech managers of MUS. He admitted as much in a testimony he submitted on 12 June 2013 during the MUS trial before the Swiss Federal Criminal Court at Bellinzona. It was a crucial piece of evidence leading to the conviction and prison sentences for the five Czech managers while de Groote himself narrowly escaped prison. He was however found guilty of fraud, no doubt a first for a former Executive Director of the IMF. de Groote left Appian Group in 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:De Groote, Jacques 1927 births Living people Belgian bankers Belgian financial businesspeople Academic staff of the Université de Namur