Alpha Bank

By George Georgiopoulos

Greece's central bank has moved to protect its banks from any fallout from the coming general election, asking the European Central Bank to approve a stand-by domestic emergency funding line, a Bank of Greece official said on Saturday.

Pressure on banks ? stemming from news that Greek lenders are resorting to emergency liquidity assistance from the Bank of Greece ? and across the market ? from statements by candidates in next weekend?s election ? led the benchmark back below the 800-point mark on increased turnover on Friday.

Two major Greek lenders applied to tap the national central bank's emergency funding a year after ending their reliance on it, a precautionary move stemming from deposit outflows before an election this month, bankers said on Jan. 16.

Worries over Greece's future in the euro zone kept shares under pressure on Monday, even as fresh multi-year lows for the euro and crude oil gave a boost to travel and consumer-goods stocks.

The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was down 0.1 percent at 0909 GMT, with benchmark indexes in London and Frankfurt also in negative territory. The Paris CAC 40 stayed flat.

The economy is already on the course to recovery, according to an Alpha Bank analysis, but it would have seen a better performance if domestic output had improved as domestic demand expanded by 2.2 percent in the third quarter of 2014.

Greece's fourth-largest lender Alpha Bank will launch a joint venture with Spanish financial services firm Aktua Soluciones Financieras to manage a substantial chunk of its non-performing loans, it said on Wednesday.

Greece's Alpha Bank raised more than $500 million from a transaction backed by shipping loans, it confirmed on Thursday, one of the first of its kind by a Greek bank since 2008.

Reuters reported in November that Alpha Bank, Greece's fourth-largest bank, was to raise about $510 million by bundling together shipping loans.

By Nikos Roussanoglou

The construction of new residential buildings across the country is expected to post a significant decline for one more year at the end of December, as in the first seven months only 5,637 new houses and apartment blocks were completed against 7,009 in the same period in 2013, according to data released on Tuesday by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT).

Alpha Bank is to raise about $510 million (410 million euros) from a deal backed by shipping loans, one of the first of its kind in Europe for nearly a year, finance industry and Alpha sources said on Friday.

Greece’s fourth-largest lender Alpha Bank reported a third-quarter loss on Tuesday because of the costs related to a voluntary redundancy scheme for its staff.

Alpha, which passed the European Central Bank’s stress test last month, fell to a net loss of 156.9 million euros after taking a charge of 194.5 million euros on the scheme, which cut its staff by 20 percent.