Eurobank Ergasias

Eurobank said on Thursday it was selling two real estate portfolios worth a combined 84 million euros to Brook Lane Capital and plans to put a third portfolio up for sale.
Eurobank, which is 2.4 percent owned by Greece's HFSF bank rescue fund after being bailed out during the country's debt crisis, repossessed most of the properties, residential and commercial, after loan defaults.

Greece's competition watchdog confirmed on Friday that it had raided all the country's major banks a day earlier as part of an investigation into collaboration between lenders.
Inspectors raided the head offices of National, Piraeus, Alpha, Attica and Eurobank, along with the offices of the Greek bank association, bankers said on Thursday.

Competition Commission officials launched extensive inspections without prior warning at the headquarters of the country's four systemic banks as well as the Hellenic Bank Association (EET) and DIAS Interbank Systems on Thursday, in a bid to probe possible cartel practices regarding customer charges.

The Greek stock market has now chalked up four declining sessions out of four so far in November, only on Wednesday the closing auctions failed to rein in the losses incurred by the benchmark. The banks index took quite a hit, tumbling almost 5 percent.

Banks are not only freezing the charge hikes they had planned to impose on customers, following pressure from the government, but they are also abolishing some other charges previously introduced.

Stocks in Athens resisted pressures and continued their upward trajectory on Monday, with banks getting the credit for grabbing investors' attention and leading the benchmark higher, although turnover remained below the 50-million-euro mark. Traders appear to be pricing in a likely Greek credit rating upgrade this Friday by Standard & Poor's.

Greece's Eurobank is struggling to finalize a deal to sell a majority stake in its loan-recovery business to US money manager PIMCO, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, after a Sept. 30 deadline passed with no agreement.

Greece's new Infrastructure Fund will have resources of 450 million euros to work with and the participation of the country's four systemic banks to contribute to high-priority sustainability projects worth at least 650 million euros.

Alpha Bank is working on a plan for the securitization of its nonperforming loans and their management by an independent company to which the lender's competent staff will be transferred.

The benchmark of the Greek bourse jumped 20 points on Thursday after a sudden buying spree by traders that saw banks earn almost 4 percent. The favorable climate on foreign markets and the continuing decline of Greek bond yields appear to have convinced investors to buy back into local stocks again.