SFS withdraws Athena bid

SFS Group Public Company Ltd (SFS) announced that it decided to recall its public offer for 50% plus 1 share of Athena Cyprus Public Company Ltd (ATH), after the decision of the Council of the Cyprus Stock Exchange on 14 May 2007 to consider the revised public offer of Hellenic Bank Public Company Ltd (HB) towards ATH’s shareholders as a competitive public offer.

Further to their announcement dated 26 March 2007 on the submission of a Public Offer by HB for the acquisition of up to 50% plus 1 share of the share capital of ATH, the Board of Directors of HB decided on 3 May 2007 to submit a revised Public Offer to the shareholders of ATH for the acquisition of up to 100% of its issued share capital. The revised consideration offered by HB is CYP0.361/ATH share (EUR0.62) from CYP0.342/share before. This represents the net asset value of Athena as at 31 March 2007, which amounted to CYP0.4075 (EUR0.7017), excluding the dividend of CYP0.0275, minus a discount of 5% (previously: discount of 10%).

HB already holds directly and indirectly, 29.49% of the issued share capital of Athena. On 27 March 2007, SFS announced its intention to submit a public offer for 50% plus 1 share of ATH, offering ATH’s Net Asset Value per share as of 31 March 2007 minus the proposed dividend of CYP0.0275/share, i.e. CYP0.380/ATH share (EUR0.65). SFS owns directly 20.87% stake in ATH while it indirectly holds an additional 0.22% stake through related physical and legal entities.