Bloomberg –National Bank of Greece SA, the Grece’s oldest lender, will only consider selling batches of bad loans to distressed debt managers once country risk recedes and bids improve, Chief Executive Officer Leonidas Fragkiadakis said.
“We are actively talking to people. As of now there is no closing-in of agreements I can report,” Fragkiadakis said in a Bloomberg interview from the lender’s headquarters in Athens
Like other Greek banks, National Bank of Greece, with assets totaling 82 billion euros, has to meet quarterly targets set by the central bank for the reduction in its non-performing exposures, or risk fines.
NBG, which returned to profit in the first nine months of the year, plans to sell more subsidiaries in southeastern Europe, as well as repay more than 2 billion euros of state aid by the end of this year, subject to approval by the Frankfurt-based Single Supervisory Mechanism.
Greek banks are struggling to contain the fallout from the deepest economic slump since World War II and the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history. Their shares have pared some of their losses in November, amid expectations of a prompt deal between the government and bailout auditors, which may also pave the way for the inclusion of Greek government bonds in the European Central Bank’s QE asset purchase program.
