ATHENS (Reuters) – Piraeus Financial, one of Greece’s four largest banks, said on Thursday that is in exclusive talks with CVC Capital Partners to acquire 70% of Ethniki Insurance.
Piraeus CEO Christos Megalou told journalists earlier this week that a possible acquisition of Greece’s second largest insurer would help it raise fee revenues to 30%, from about 20%.
“We agreed … to proceed with exclusive discussions regarding the potential acquisition by Piraeus of a 70% stake in Ethniki Insurance for 469 million euros ($485.84 million),” the bank said in a stock exchange filing.
CVC, which manages assets worth 191 billion euros, bought a 90% stake in Ethniki from National Bank in 2021.
Greek banks are returning to normal activities after three recapitalisations that led to their nationalisation after the country was rocked by a financial meltdown in late 2009.
Having cut bad loan ratios and returned to profitability, they received European Central Bank approval last year to resume dividend payments for the first time in 16 years.
Piraeus, which was fully privatised last year, expects net profit of 1 billion euros for 2024 and plans to return 35% of its profit to shareholders.
It has hired UBS as a financial adviser and Milliman as an actuarial consultant for the Ethniki transaction.
($1 = 0.9653 euros)
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; Editing by Alexander Smith)
