Cantero to step down as Development Bank of Puerto Rico chief.

Ramon Cantero-Frau will end more than two years as president of the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico this month, a spokeswoman for the bank said Friday.

Mr. Cantero tendered his resignation in June, and members of bank's board of directors accepted it last week, said Meriemil Rodriguez, the spokeswoman.

The bank serves as the chief fiscal agent for the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, as well as for a constellation of financing authorities.

According to Ms. Rodriguez, Mr. Cantero will be replaced by Jose Berrocal, a counselor of Gov. Rafael Hernandez Colon. Mr. Cantero's resignation will take effect July 31. Ms. Rodriguez said Mr. Cantero had not yet determined his next professional step.

Mr. Cantero oversaw an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to sell the island's telephone system to the private sector to help raise $1 billion for an infrastructure fund and another $1 billion for an education fund.

Mr. Cantero had told Gov. Hernandez "he was going to stay until the end of the telephone company transaction, whether it was sold or not," Ms. Rodriguez said.

Mr. Cantero does not consider the two years he spent trying to sell the assets of the commonwealth's telephone system wasted time.

"Even though the telephone authority was not sold, he considered the whole process a success, because it brought out into discussion the whole privatization issue," Ms. Rodriguez said. "When he came to the bank it was something nobody spoke abut. They took it as far as they could."

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