Greek bank Attica's shareholders clear buyback
ATHENS | Fri Jan 28, 2011 10:22am EST
ATHENS Jan 28 (Reuters) - Attica Bank (
BOAr.AT), a small Greek lender, got shareholder approval on Friday to buy back 100.2 million euros ($137 million) worth of preferred shares it sold the government two years ago under a liquidity support scheme.
The move will enable the bank to resume dividend payments.
"In 2011 the bank is setting the foundations for its future growth, disentangling from state restrictions. A first step is the buyback of the preferred shares," Chairman Yannis Gamvrilis told shareholders. The shares were issued to the government under a 28 billion-euro liquidity support scheme offered by
Greece's previous administration in 2008 at the height of the global credit crisis.
Attica will pay in cash to buy back the shares on which the government was earning a 10 percent dividend. The transaction is subject to approval by the Bank of Greece, the country's central bank.
Gamvrilis said that even after the buyback, the bank's capital adequacy ratios will stay well above the thresholds set by the Bank of Greece.
Attica's Tier 1 capital ratio stood at 16.7 percent in the third quarter of 2009.
Attica's management wants to grow the bank organically or through acquisitions and raise its market share in loans and deposits to above 3 percent from about 2 percent. [ID:nLDE68R16M]
"We are ready to take advantage of opportunities which will enable the bank to access wider segments of the market and further gropw its business," Gamvrilis said.
Attica Bank is 43 percent owned by engineers fund TSMEDE. Its other big shareholders are Hellenic Postbank (TT) (
GPSr.AT) with a 22 percent stake and the Loans & Consignments Fund (L&C) with 19 percent.
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