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The French bank Crédit Agricole has rejected the offers of National Bank of Greece and Eurobank EFG, which wanted to buy Emporiki Bank. Now, the only candidate remaining to acquire Emporiki is Alpha Bank. The French holding company informed the Greek side about its decision on Sunday. The merger should be completed by 31 December this year and it should meet all established standards of supervisors.

In July 2012, Crédit Agricole recapitalized Emporiki with 2.3 billion euro. In addition to this amount, the French bank has undertakem to disburse another 550 million euro before the completion of the transaction. The transaction itself will cost one euro, the French bank has stated. Crédit Agricole will buy 150 million euro convertible shares of Alpha Bank and after the successful completion of the transaction, it will hold 10% of the new scheme of Alpha Bank.

In the middle of the summer, Alpha Bank made an offer to participate in the bidding. The Bank headed by Yiannis Costopoulos said that the transaction would limit the use of state capital for the recovery of the bank and would contribute to the improvement of the Greek banking system. The announcement says that after the transaction, Alpha Bank will hold (pro forma) 19% of deposits in the Greek financial market and 25% of loans with a leading position in corporate finance.

The decision of Crédit Agricole to prefer Alpha Bank to Eurobank EFG was a great shock to the Latsis family’s bank. According to information circulated in the Greek media, the acquisition of Emporiki was of key importance for Eurobank’s reforming and strengthening. The headquarters in Luxembourg are extremely unhappy with the developments.