Galery

1

There is a high chance that the public offer of the National Bank to the shareholders of Eurobank will be accepted. According to information, there is about an 85% chance. What will happen to the other 15%? Of the 85% of the shares of Eurobank that were proposed for replacement by new shares of the National Bank of Greece, about half were given by the Latsis family, who kept 1.5% due to symbolic reasons. These shares, together with rest which will not be replaced within the public offer, will be negotiated on the stock exchange until the legal merger of the two banks. Once that happens, these will be transferred in the same way as was in force at the time of the public offer (58 shares of the National Bank for 100 shares of Eurobank), with the name of the new bank.

Chronology

The official results of the public offer are expected to be announced by the management of the National Bank next week. On 21 February, documents for the approval of the introduction of new shares by the Athens Stock Exchange will be submitted. The verification of the share capital increase is scheduled for 26 February, and, on 27 February, negotiations for the new shares will begin.

The end of the Eurobank brand

According to information, the management of the National Bank has decided to merge the branch networks of both banks and use the logo of the National Bank of Greece for all branches. This means that, in a few months, the logo of Eurobank will cease to exist after 16 years. It is noted that Spiros Latsis changed the name of the former Euro Investment Bank to Eurobank in 1997.

The functional merger of the two banks will begin immediately, and a plan for the reduction of staff will be implemented as well. Next week, it is expected that the voluntary redundancy programme will be applied by the National Bank to 2,000 people, and, if it is successful, a similar programme will be implemented immediately in Eurobank, too. The management of the National Bank is negotiating with the employees' union of the bank as regards the conditions of the redundancy of those 2,000 people. The voluntary redundancy programme will apply to employees who reach retirement age between now and 2016. They can leave with a cash bonus the amount of which has not yet been determined. According to the management of the bank, the voluntary redundancy programme is in fact a voluntary retirement programme, without, however, straining social insurance funds and the state budget.

It is recalled that, following the contract for the purchase of Eurobank, the National Bank is facing serious problems regarding excess staff. It currently has 13,000 employees, and, following the merger, these will become 20,000.

Meanwhile, CEO of the National Bank Alexandros Tourkoulias sent a message to the employees of the bank on the occasion of the announcement of the voluntary redundancy programme, in which he explained the reasons for the programme and promised that the labour and pension rights of employees will be respected. The cost of this programme will not be paid by the budget and insurance funds, but by the bank.