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Greek banks recapitalization is certain

08 February 2012 / 23:02:31  GRReporter
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Greek banks' recapitalization in the process of reducing the Greek debt is certain and it seems they will get away with nationalization. The shares that the state will receive after the partial funding of bank losses due to debt restructuring will be without voting right for three years, Vima reports. The bill also includes 11 billion euro in loans to unprofitable public enterprises such as the public railways company, the companies managing the public transport in Athens and Thessaloniki, the public civil air transport and national defence.

On Wednesday, Minister of Finance Evangelos Venizelos met with the heads of major commercial banks in Greece for the final version of the recapitalization of local banks following the Greek debt haircut by private creditors (PSI).

Meanwhile, foreign observers are already losing even the slightest confidence they used to have in the European future of Greece. One of the largest investment funds in the world PIMCO depreciated the government securities of eurozone countries. Standard & Poors announced that Greek foreign debt would not be sustainable even after a 70% haircut, Reuters reports. Therefore, the agency will further downgrade Greece after the PSI procedure is completed.  S&P analyst Frank Gill said that regardless of the haircut on debt to private creditors, the result will not be satisfactory, because most of the government bonds of the country are held by institutional lenders such as the European Central Bank. He stressed that if 50% -70% losses had been negotiated with private creditors two years ago, the results for Greece and debt sustainability would have been much better.

WSJ broke the news today that the European Central Bank will probably be involved in the exchange of Greek government bonds, but then, institutional sources rushed to refute it using unofficial channels. It is not yet clear how the European Central Bank will play its cards, but one scenario suggests that it may sell the securities to the European Financial Stability Facility EFSF at reduced nominal value and Greece will buy them back after stabilizing. Despite the unclear situation, the Athens Stock Exchange continues to register profits. On Wednesday, its basic index closed with an increase of 0.86% compared with the results from Tuesday and its daily turnover exceeded 112 million euro.

As recently announced, the council of eurozone ministers Eurogroup will meet on Thursday afternoon. This means that Brussels can no longer wait for the leaders of political parties in Greece to pass the ball while deciding who should assume responsibility for the vote on austerity measures in order to obtain the financial aid from Europe. Time is running out, and the confidence in Greece is vanishing.

Tags: EconomyMarketsNegotiationsGreeceTroikaCrisis
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