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Piraeus will pay one million euros for Geniki

 Piraeus Bank buys Geniki:

Piraeus Bank announced on Friday it has signed an agreement with French bank Society General to buy 99.08 percent of its Greek subsidiary, Geniki Bank. 
Piraeus Bank will pay a nominal 1 million euros to buy Geniki's equity capital. Geniki's net value was 100m euros at the end of March.
For its part in the sale, Society General will invest a total of 444m euros, covering the recapitalization of Geniki Bank (281m euros) and a bond issue of Piraeus Bank by Society General (163m euros), convertible into Piraeus shares or Tier 1 capital.
The purchase comes just over two months after Piraeus bought the profitable side of state-owned lender ATEbank.

The purchase will boost Piraeus Bank Group’s pro-form assets to 77bn euros, its loan portfolio to 46bn euros and savings to 37bn euros. The new group, which will include Piraeus, ATEbank and Geniki – will have a combined workforce of 18,000, a branch network of 1,328 units in 10 countries and a customer base of 6 million.
 Michalis Sallas, chairman of the Piraeus Bank Group, commenting on the agreement, said: “Following the purchase of selected assets of ATEbank, Piraeus Bank continues to play a pivotal role in the restructuring of the Greek banking system. The addition of Geniki Bank will further improve the capital and funding sources of our group and strengthens our position ahead of a forthcoming bank recapitalization plan."

The agreement is part of a framework set by the Bank of Greece and the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) that is aimed at achieving a restructuring of the domestic banking system and strengthening financial stability.
 The terms and preconditions of the transactions have been approved by the HFSF, while the deal is expected to be completed before the end of 2012, pending approval by market authorities.
 Piraeus Bank said the deal will boost its capital adequacy rate by 1.2 percentage points, strengthen its liquidity by more than 300m euros and significantly raises the possibility of covering a future share capital increase plan.