Alpha Bank announced on Monday in Athens that it could no longer say when the merger would be finalized, while Eurobank, the majority shareholder of Bancpost, sees no reasons for a delay and wants the merger to take place “as soon as possible.”
Because of the negative surprise on the market, Alpha Bank on Monday night came with explanations: the General Meeting of shareholders, which on November 15 approved the merger with Eurobank, did not take into consideration the impact of the restructuring of Greek debts, whereby private creditors are called to take massive writedowns on their holdings of Greek government debt because the parameters of the plan were and still are unclear.
So Alpha decided to wait for the plan to be clarified, believing that its effects on the bank’s merger partner would be very different, and that it would subsequently call a new General Meeting in order to decide whether it still takes part in the merger.
Athens banking sources say the losses Eurobank would have to book are twice as high as Alpha’s because of the former’s exposure to Greek bonds.
The situation is all the more delicate since the Greek competition authority had just approved the merger. The Finance Ministry in Athens also says the debt restructuring plan cannot be a reason to delay the merger. If the merger falls through, the prospect of nationalization returns.
The completion of the Greek merger was awaited impatiently in Bucharest, where Alpha Bank and Bancpost have been working for several months in a climate of uncertainty over what form the merger would take and over the consequences that it would have in terms of personnel cuts and unit cuts.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)