Samaras meeting with Dimon key to Greek return to bond markets

By Jesse Westbrook, Eshe Nelson & Nikos Chrysoloras

Shut out of international bond markets for four years, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras wasn’t going to take any chances with his country’s return.

He began months ago lining up investors for the April 10 debt sale, which proved irresistible to the likes of BlackRock Inc. and Invesco Ltd. The keystone for his pitch was a September meeting with investors at JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s headquarters in Manhattan hosted by Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the event was private.

The charm offensive paved the way for a 3 billion-euro ($4.1 billion) offering that drew orders for almost seven times that amount. While the nation remains blighted by deflation and the highest unemployment in Europe, the sale underscored Greece’s strengthening ties across the euro area as it seeks to overcome the stigma of starting a region-wide financial crisis with the biggest-ever restructuring.

“This trade is not without risk,” Mark Nash, a London- based money manager at Invesco, which oversees $787 billion including $177 billion of fixed-income assets, said in a telephone interview on April 17 after buying the new government notes. “It relies on European growth continuing to improve. The fundamentals in Greece are not terribly rosy, but there’s no doubt they are doing a lot better.”

Joining Invesco among the buyers of the new five-year securities were New York-based Greylock Capital Management LLC, which oversees $850 million, and Legal & General Investment Management, with the equivalent of $758 billion.

BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager with $4 trillion in...