Alpha Bank

Morning gains gave way to small losses for the majority of Greek stocks on Wednesday as traders had their eyes firmly fixed on developments at the conference on Greece in Frankfurt.

The Athens Exchange (ATHEX) general index closed at 775.24 points, shedding 0.10 percent from Tuesday's 776.02 points. The large-cap FTSE 25 index contracted 0.13 percent to 2,061.55 points.

Greece's systemic banks are set to show they have remained in the black over the first quarter of the year and successfully weathered the uncertainty that has prevailed during much of the long runup to the completion of the second bailout review.

Greece's central bank has granted a license to Pillarstone, the platform set up by private equity firm KKR, to provide long-term capital to large Greek corporate borrowers and manage non-performing exposures for Greek banks, Eurobank said on Thursday.

The benchmark of the Greek stock market prose for the seventh session in a row on Wednesday, on the eve of an extraordinary meeting of the Euro Working Group to discuss progress in talks on Greece's bailout review. Alpha Bank buoyed all the main indices higher while trading volume remained above 100 million euros.

Greece's main power utility Public Power Corp. (PPC) has secured a 200 million euro ($217 million) bond loan from the country's main lenders to refinance debt, it said on Tuesday.

Alpha Bank, Greece's fourth largest lender by assets, was profitable in October-December for a second straight quarter as improved net interest income offset higher provisions for impaired loans.

Alpha, 11 percent owned by the country's bank rescue fund HFSF, reported a net profit of 20.1 million euros, down from net earnings of 41.2 million in the third quarter.

Five leading financial institutions have signed a long-term financing agreement with German-Greek consortium Fraport Greece, which will soon be managing, operating, upgrading and maintaining 14 regional Greek airports under a 40-year concession contract.

A late rally of bank stocks and a few other blue chips offset the losses the benchmark had incurred during most of Wednesday's session to end in the green, although losers outnumbered climbers. Reports of convergence between government ministers and creditors' representatives in Brussels played a major part in that late surge.

Eurobank Financial Planning Services (FPS), is the second bad-loan management firm to obtain a license from the Greek authorities to operate in the local market. It follows the permit issued to Cepal, a joint venture by Alpha Bank and Aktua.

Tuesday's gains posted by bank stocks and the local bourse benchmark were wiped out on Wednesday on the realization that the second bailout review is nowhere near completion. The warning for Wednesday's drop for bank stocks had come at the end of trade on Tuesday, by which time their index had sunk to the day's low.