Primary dealers

Italian group UniCredit is proceeding to establish a strategic partnership with Alpha Bank, submitting a proposal to acquire the 9% stake held by bank rescue fund HFSF in the lender.

Goldman Sachs expects Greek banks to show strong results in the third quarter of the year as well, following the trend of the second quarter, with further strengthening of net interest income, which will be supported by the 50-basis point increase in interest rates, to which it is estimated that the European Central Bank will have progressed in the specific period.

The benchmark of the Greek stock market staged an impressive rebound late in Friday's session to come back from 1% down and close with gains of almost 1%. Banks led the way for the recovery of the index, though that was not enough to offset all its weekly losses.

The divestment of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund from Eurobank has been postponed by a few days following the acquisition of Hellenic Bank, in an attempt to value the bank based on the new financial data.

Wargaming has announced its decision to sell its remaining stake of 6.8% (28,023,767 shares) in Hellenic Bank to Eurobank.

The deal is valued at 65.9 million euros, equivalent to €2.35 per share.

Eurobank Cyprus, the local subsidiary of Greece's Eurobank Group, will have a controlling share of over 50% in Hellenic, the second largest lender.

The fourteenth iteration of the "Global Wealth Report", published on Wednesday by Credit Suisse and UBS, illustrates that the European south has recovered from the effects of the pandemic.

The report also claims that there are 79,000 millionaires (in US dollars) in Greece. 

Türkiye will continue to accumulate foreign exchange reserves as long as market conditions allow, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has said.

The minister noted that the gross reserves climbed to $115 billion in the week ending Aug. 4 from $98.5 billion as of the end of May, citing the data from the country's Central Bank.

Interest in the initial public offering of Athens International Airport is surging, with prospective investors inquiring with advisers Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley and shareholder Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (TAIPED), the privatization agency.

Greece on Tuesday raised 3.5 billion euros in cash and bonds from a new 15-year bond issue, its debt agency said, marking the nation's first bond sale since June's national election.

Investor demand topped 13 billion euros and the final pricing was set at mid-swaps plus 125 basis points, a yield of about 4.42%, the Public Debt Management Agency said in a filing.

The book-building process on a 15-year syndicated bond issue has attracted very strong investment demand, with bids exceeding 11 billion euros pushing the interest rate of the issue from 4.5% initially to 4.45%.