SocGen's Greek unit Geniki Q1 loss doubles
ATHENS | Wed May 4, 2011 11:32am EDT
ATHENS May 4 (Reuters) - Geniki Bank (
GHBr.AT), majority-owned by France's Societe Generale (
SOGN.PA), said on Wednesday its loss doubled year-on-year in the first quarter as Greece's economic woes led to more bad debt provisions.
The bank, which was taken over by SocGen in 2004 and is being restructured to compete with larger Greek lenders, lost 98.6 million euros ($146 million) in the first three months of 2011 versus a loss of 45.7 million in the same quarter last year.
"A significant deterioration of the economic environment caused provisions to rise to 98.2 million euros, twice as high as in the year-ago period," the bank said in a statement.
Greek economic output is projected to shrink by 3.0 percent this year after a 4.5 percent slump in 2010 as austerity measures to slash deficits under an EU/IMF bailout take a toll and unemployment climbs to 15.1 percent.
Kicking off the
earnings reporting season for Greek banks, Geniki said the lender's loan portfolio shrank 3.8 percent quarter-on-quarter to 3.4 billion euros.
Societe Generale's holding in Geniki rose to 88.4 from 53.9 percent in November last year after a 340 million euro cash call to boost the Greek lender's capital.
Geniki suffered a loss of 411 million euros in 2010 as loan-loss provisions jumped to 415.2 million euros.
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Corporate.