ATHENS (Reuters) – Piraeus Financial Holdings, one of Greece’s four largest lenders, is in talks with private equity firm CVC Capital Partners to buy National Insurance, its CEO told a press conference on Monday.
Earlier on Monday, the Greek lender, which owns Piraeus Bank, said in a bourse filing that it is assessing an investment in National Insurance.
CVC Capital, which manages assets worth 191 billion euros, bought a 90% stake in the Greek insurance firm, the country’s second largest, from National Bank in 2021.
Piraeus Chief Executive Christos Megalou told journalists that the bank “Is in discussions to buy National Insurance” adding that if an agreement is reached it will help its group to increase fee revenues to 30% from about 20% now.
“We will have one more defence”, Megalou said referring to falling interest rates in euro zone. He didn’t providing details on the possible deal.
Piraeus, which was fully privatised last year, expects net profit of 1 billion euros for 2024 and plans to return 35% of these to shareholders.
Greek lenders are returning to normality after three recapitalisations that led to their nationalisation in the previous decade, when 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.
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; editing by David Evans)
