Finance

Athens International Airport shareholders have given the go-ahead for the sale of a 30% stake in the country's biggest airport by privatization agency TAIPED, a senior official from the agency said on Thursday.

The state-owned Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund has hired Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank to act as advisers on the sale of its stake.

Τhe 10-year Greek benchmark bond yield has this week fallen to its lowest levels in 10 months, returning to levels last seen in August 2022. 

Traders said market sentiment remained positive despite comments made by European Central Bank officials over the possibility of fresh interest-rate increases. 

The cost of new housing construction has recorded an increase of 65-70% from mid-2021 to date due to the successive crises - first the disruption in the supply chain caused by the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine. 

A federal judge said Wednesday that he won't block JPMorgan's legal efforts to blame a former executive of hiding Jeffrey Epstein's decades-long sex abuse to keep the financier as a client.

Greek bonds are already trading as though the country has regained investment grade, bank analysts that deal with Greek government debt told Reuters on Friday, with the news agency reporting that investors consider Greece's return to investment-grade credit ratings "a done deal."

Moody's projects that Greece will post one of the largest debt reductions internationally over the next few years, stressing that the sustainability of the Greek debt is already at a much better level than that of Italy (which is rated investment grade) and will continue to be.

Eurozone government bond yields were headed for a weekly rise as robust economic data and hawkish remarks by central bank officials triggered some upward repricing in market bets about future European Central Bank rate hikes.

Republican People's Party (CHP) leader and Nation Alliance's presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has pledged the citizens to make regulations in order to ease the burden of credit card debts if he is elected as the president in the May 28 polls.

Greece's main power utility Public Power Corporation (PPC) said on Thursday it had swung to profit in the first quarter on the back of lower energy costs. 

The utility reported net profit of 51 million euros for the January-to-March period versus a loss of €186 million last year. 

As widely expected, Türkiye's Central Bank has once again kept its policy rate - one-week repo auction rate- constant at 8.5 percent.