Greece is unlikely victor in bank selldown race
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
By Liam Proud
LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) -In 2010, it was hard to imagine the day when Greece's banking sector would be fully privatised and thriving. That was the year the government founded the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) to prop up ailing lenders. Perhaps even more surprising is that Athens now looks set to reach that milestone well ahead of economies like Germany, Britain and the Netherlands. The success is down to continuous state support and a revival of Greek investment.
The HFSF, run since 2021 by former banker and government adviser Ilias Xirouhakis, said on Thursday that it had offloaded 10% of 7-billion-euro lender National Bank of Greece NBGr.AT (NBG). That leaves the old 50-billion-euro bailout fund with just an 8.4% holding, which it will transfer to a state sovereign wealth vehicle by the end of the year along with a remaining investment in minor lender Attica Bank BOAr.AT.
To all intents and purposes, then, the HFSF’s privatisation programme is almost complete. Compare that with Germany, which is holding on to its remaining 12% stake in Commerzbank CBKG.DE amid M&A interest from Italy’s UniCredit CRDI.MI. The Dutch government still owns more than two-fifths of ABN Amro ABNd.AS, while UK taxpayers have almost a fifth of NatWest NWG.L, formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland.
The Greeks have been faster mostly because the government has made more of a concerted effort – both to get out of the holdings and to clean up the banks. The HFSF’s governing law, amended in 2022, outlines a divestment strategy and mandates that the vehicle be wound up by the end of 2025. Few other European governments have given themselves firm deadlines.
And the state continued to assist its big lenders – NBG, Alpha Services ACBr.AT, Piraeus Financial BOPr.AT and Eurobank Ergasias EURBr.AT – well after the crisis. As recently as 2018, non-performing loans accounted for a third of the total on average across the so-called Big Four, according to Visible Alpha data. A scheme known as Hercules, backed by the ministry of finance, helped move the dud exposures off banks’ balance sheets through government-guaranteed securitisations. This year, the non-performing loan ratio will be just 2% on average across the Big Four, analysts reckon.
That has left the banks free to lend into a recent Greek investment boom, helped by pandemic-era European Union funding programmes. In 2022, the last year for which Eurostat data is available, gross investment rose to 14% of Greek GDP compared with 11% before the pandemic. That’s still far below the European average of 23%, but if companies like Pfizer PFE.N and Microsoft MSFT.O keep investing that gap may narrow.
Analysts reckon the average return on tangible equity across the Big Four will exceed 15% this year. NBG trades at 90% of 2024 forecast tangible book value, compared with about two-thirds for Commerz and ABN. Greece has managed to unshackle its banks, and they now seem more likely to power the economy forward than drag it down.
Follow @Breakingviews on X
CONTEXT NEWS
Greece on Oct. 3 effectively completed the re-privatisation of its major lenders with the sale of a 10% stake in National Bank of Greece.
The state-controlled Hellenic Financial Stability Fund offloaded 91.5 million shares in Greece's second-largest bank by market value, at a sale price of 7.55 euros per share, or roughly 0.9 times the lender's estimated 2024 tangible book value.
HFSF, launched in 2010, began divesting its stakes in Greece's four largest lenders in 2023 having injected about 50 billion euros to prop them up during the euro zone debt crisis.
HFSF will, by the end of 2024, transfer a remaining 8.4% stake in National Bank to Greece's sovereign wealth fund.
Bailed out banks’ state ownership and expected returns https://reut.rs/3NaPbcr
Editing by Aimee Donnellan and Streisand Neto
면책조항: XM Group 회사는 체결 전용 서비스와 온라인 거래 플랫폼에 대한 접근을 제공하여, 개인이 웹사이트에서 또는 웹사이트를 통해 이용 가능한 콘텐츠를 보거나 사용할 수 있도록 허용합니다. 이에 대해 변경하거나 확장할 의도는 없습니다. 이러한 접근 및 사용에는 다음 사항이 항상 적용됩니다: (i) 이용 약관, (ii) 위험 경고, (iii) 완전 면책조항. 따라서, 이러한 콘텐츠는 일반적인 정보에 불과합니다. 특히, 온라인 거래 플랫폼의 콘텐츠는 금융 시장에서의 거래에 대한 권유나 제안이 아닙니다. 금융 시장에서의 거래는 자본에 상당한 위험을 수반합니다.
온라인 거래 플랫폼에 공개된 모든 자료는 교육/정보 목적으로만 제공되며, 금융, 투자세 또는 거래 조언 및 권고, 거래 가격 기록, 금융 상품 또는 원치 않는 금융 프로모션의 거래 제안 또는 권유를 포함하지 않으며, 포함해서도 안됩니다.
이 웹사이트에 포함된 모든 의견, 뉴스, 리서치, 분석, 가격, 기타 정보 또는 제3자 사이트에 대한 링크와 같이 XM이 준비하는 콘텐츠 뿐만 아니라, 제3자 콘텐츠는 일반 시장 논평으로서 "현재" 기준으로 제공되며, 투자 조언으로 여겨지지 않습니다. 모든 콘텐츠가 투자 리서치로 해석되는 경우, 투자 리서치의 독립성을 촉진하기 위해 고안된 법적 요건에 따라 콘텐츠가 의도되지 않았으며, 준비되지 않았다는 점을 인지하고 동의해야 합니다. 따라서, 관련 법률 및 규정에 따른 마케팅 커뮤니케이션이라고 간주됩니다. 여기에서 접근할 수 있는 앞서 언급한 정보에 대한 비독립 투자 리서치 및 위험 경고 알림을 읽고, 이해하시기 바랍니다.
