Emporiki Cyprus to be sold

Emporiki Bank Group S.A. of Greece announced that it has reached a preliminary accord with two Cypriot investors to sell its 75.02% stake in its Cyprus subsidiary, Emporiki Bank (Cyprus) Ltd, subject to regulatory approval. The process may take up to 2 months to complete.

Emporiki announced that it will sell its controlling stake in its Cyprus subsidiary to Cypriot investors Hagop Keheyan and Periklis Manglis for an undisclosed amount and become a minority shareholder.

The sale is in line with Group policy to sell off subsidiaries with a low profit margin and after it became obvious that its ambitious target of reaching a 5% share of the Cyprus banking market with a 45 branch network would not be achieved.

Emporiki Bank (Cyprus) Ltd’s market share of deposits and

advances as at 31 May 2005, stood at 0.6% and 1.2% respectively, operating through 12 branches.

The current shareholders of Emporiki Bank (Cyprus) Ltd are: Commercial Bank of Greece S.A. (75.02%), Glory Financial Services (9.99%), Efthyvoulos Paraskevaides (9.99%) and Dakis Stelios Ioannou (5%).

Emporiki was first established in Cyprus in 1994 with an initial capital of CYP 10 mln. It last reported net losses of CYP 642.000 for the first half of 2004, for which there are available data and was recently engaged in talks with Societe Generale for a possible sale, which collapsed after the French group balked at the Bank’s high labour costs.