ENGLISH EDITION

Exceptionally favorable conditions in the fixed income market in combination with improved economic conditions in Greece and high expectations for a good 2020 have driven yields to historic lows.However, this optimism has not spilled over on to the stock market. The distance separating the stock and bond markets is obvious.

PPC has been awarded a tender held by the Defence Ministry to develop former military barracks located on Mesogion avenue, opposite the Sotiria hospital, where it intends to set up a modernized head office and retail store. PPC will take on the property for 50 years, with an option for 10 more years, on a property that stretches over 1.8 hectares and accommodates 22 buildings.

In recent weeks, the government has picked up efforts on this front, as a very small number of loans (tied to primary residencies) have qualified for favorable treatment, indicating that a wave of forced home sales is coming up, in what may trigger significant opposition at a community level.

In recent weeks, it appears that talks on the issue have frozen amidst objections from the European Central Bank (ECB ) over accepting senior debt to be issued by the program as having no risk, while Greece has rejected a proposal to issue special purpose state bonds to support the 12 billion euros of guarantees.

Out of the 120,000 loan holders who can potentially seek more favorable repayment terms (on housing, consumer and business loans tied to their primary residence), about half have applied to restructure the debt. However, only 4,000 of them have put together a complete application on this, of which half, some 1,600 applications, have been rejected for exceeding allowable income and asset levels.

"The scheme itself is not a panacea for resolving the asset quality problem in the banking system, given that we estimate only up to around 36 billion euros of NPEs can be dealt with through this scheme compared to around 71 billion euros of outstanding NPEs in the system as of September 2019," Nondas Nicolaides, Vice President – Senior Credit Officer at Moody’s Investors Service, told Business Daily.

Both ports have been showing strong growth. In 2019, 5.65 million containers moved through Piraeus, representing an increase of 28.4 percent, after taking into account the estimated number of goods transported through Pier I (the formal data has yet to be made public). 

Bad loans are not something new in Greece. In fact, they are as old as the crisis itself. However, no previous Greek government showed any determination to address the issue, as international creditors adopted a similar stance. Since the crisis arose in 2008, Greek governments kept putting the issue on the back burner by blocking efforts by lenders to recover nonperforming loans (NPLs), providing loan holders with protection.

Figures from HousingAnywhere show that renting a place in London costs nearly 1,750 euros per month. In Barcelona, a Mediterranean city that also has a tourism-driven economy similar to Athens', the cost reaches 1,250 euros per month.

“Our inaugural Tier II capital transaction is a key milestone in the implementation of our recently communicated strategic plan. The strong demand by a well-diversified international investor base led to this successful outcome, which represents a strong testament to the future of Alpha Bank and the prospects of the Greek economy,” said Alpha Bank chief executive Vassilios Psaltis.