Staff at Greek banks protest takeover bid
|
|
Rating 0/5 [0 Votes]
|
 Print |
 E-mail |
|
|
Thousands of employees at two Greek state-controlled banks held a one-day strike on Friday to protest against a proposed €700m ($904m) takeover by Piraeus Bank, a private Greek lender.
More than 1,500 strikers held separate demonstrations outside the Athens headquarters of the takeover targets – Agricultural Bank of Greece (AGB) and
In spite of the protests, Piraeus’s move was expected to trigger the launch of a formal privatisation process for both banks, analysts said.
“Piraeus was the first to respond to the government’s calls for consolidation in the banking sector. It has challenged the state to play its part,” said one Athens banker.
The government said it was examining Piraeus’s offer.
Under Greek privatisation law, the government would appoint an adviser to make evaluations and hold an international tender to sell its stake in both banks – a process expected to take at least six months.
Union leaders said Piraeus’s unsolicited cash offer on Thursday for the state’s 33.04 per cent stake in Hellenic and 77.3 per cent stake in ABG conflicted with the government’s stated policy of merging state-owned banks to help promote economic growth.
Costas Ammountzias, president of AGB’s union said: “We’re not against consolidation but it should involve the creation of a strong state banking pillar that can provide healthy competition for the private sector.”
George Sideris, head of Hellenic’s union, said: “Our bank holds the deposits of Greece’s small savers ... It shouldn’t become a target for a commercial bank seeking to expand.”
Piraeus’s move came as Theodoros Pantalakis, chairman of ABG, was preparing a formal proposal to merge four state-controlled banks – including ABG and Hellenic – to create the country’s biggest financial group.
The other banks involved would be Attica Bank and the Loans and Consignments Fund, which are both profitable, an ABG official said.
Rating agencies sounded negative on Piraeus’s move, underlining the problems that Greek banks face over their dependence on funding from the European Central Bank and also the weakness of their struggling domestic economy.
Standard & Poor’s put Piraeus’s rating on credit watch with a negative outlook.
It said that the action “reflects our opinion that if the deal is completed it may weaken Piraeus’s financial profile”.
Fitch cut the individual rating of Piraeus Bank by one notch to D.
Fitch also downgraded Greece’s three other leading banks – National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank and EFG Eurobank – to D.
The reason for the downgrading was due to a deterioration in asset quality and profitability, as well as its “expectations of continued pressure amid a recessionary environment in Greece”.
source ft.com
Sep 8, 2010 - 03:14
