"Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez phoned an official at Spanish bank BBVA's local unit (BBVA.MC)(BBVA.N) live on TV on Wednesday to threaten it with nationalization if mortgage seekers were not better served.
The socialist president has frequently threatened to take over any banks that stand in the way of financing for much needed home building in the country, and has singled out BBVA'S Banco Provincial unit in the past. [ID:nN07106700]
But he upped the ante on Wednesday when, after hearing complaints by would-be homeowners about lack of attention from Provincial, he phoned the official during a televised meeting.
'If Banco Provincial, which you preside over here in Venezuela, is not prepared to comply with the law and presidential decrees, then prepare to hand me the bank. I'll pay whatever it costs,' Chavez told the official whom he named as Pedro Rodriguez, Provincial's executive president.
'I can expropriate it whenever I want,' Chavez added, in a classic example of the political theater that has been a hallmark of his controversial rule."
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