Galery

1

71% of the investors do not exclude the possibility of Greece to go bankrupt, according to a Bloomberg survey distributed at the end of this week. Secondly comes the eventual bankruptcy of Ireland with 51% and Portugal with 38%. The percentage of investors who believe that the financial collapse of Greece is inevitable increased in the last two months by four percentage points and during this period came out also the threat-warning of the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, that if PASOK does not have a majority in the local elections, he will announce premature parliamentary ones.

At the same time, the National Statistical Institute came out with the results for the development of the local economy, which showed that the gross domestic product fell with an unexpectedly high speed.The negative economic growth has reached 4.5 percent of the GDP for the third quarter of 2010 based on prices from 2000. A significant decrease is registered in the expenditures of the final consumption and investments. Improvement was seen in the trade balance, which partially offsets the effect of these factors, but in reality does not change the fact that the GDP is decreasing at a faster pace than expected.

"In Greece today we are paying the price of false bliss," said in an official speech given in the capital, the President of the Hellenic Chamber of Industry Dimitris Daskalopoulos. He made serious criticism of the political system of Greece, by calling it incompetent, and descriing its behavior as parasitic. Daskalopoulos accused state governments of the past of populism and corruption, and pointed them as the main culprits for suffocation of the entrepreneurship and the free business spirit of the country. "That is why today we are looking the national bankruptcy straight in the eyes " said sharply Dimitris Daskalopoulos. He said that Greece could recover and turn its back to the past only with strict discipline and determination, because the position it is in today has no exit without painful change.

And while industrialists and traders in the country are struggling with difficult economic reality, Greek banks are doing everything in their powers to break the circle of financial crisis and seek various opportunities to go out on the international markets. First brave step for the separation from the funding from the European Central Bank made the National Bank of Greece and EFG Eurobank by opening up repurchase agreements (lines of funding through the temporary transfer of shares with a commitment to repurchase at an agreed price) on the global interbank market. EFG Eurobank has entered into repurchase agreements for the amount of four billion euros. Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou welcomes the initiative of the two largest commercial banks in the country and said that repos are an important step in strengthening the local economy and the increase of market liquidity.

After the successful increase of capital last month, the National Bank of Greece agreed with international partners for 4.7 billion euros against the Greek government bonds as a collateral. At the same time it announced that the advisers on the deal for the sale of 20% of Finansbank will be Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch BofA, Goldman Sachs and HSBC.

Following the example of the National Bank of Greece Marfin Popular Bank announced late this week that in early January 2011 it will resort to increase in its share capital to 488.6 million euros by issuing new shares for old shareholders. The new shares will be in the ratio of one new share for every two old ones at an issue price of 1 euro per share. Also a unanimous approval has been reached for the issuance of convertible securities capital of 660 million euros, with a minimum price for the transaction of 1.8 euros per share.

Read phonetically