Hellenic Bank to proceed with Athena takeover

The Annual General Meeting of shareholders of Hellenic Bank Public Co (HB) approved a final dividend payment of EUR 0.02 per share for 2008 raising the total dividend to EUR 0.05/per share.
The ex-dividend day is set on 27 May 2009, with dividend reinvestment scheme allowing a 15% discount on the bid-ask average of the stock traded 5 days following its ex-dividend date (i.e. 27 May up to 2 June).
The Bank’s CEO Makis Keravnos pointed that the year 2010 would be a more difficult year than 2009 as economic conditions of Cyprus’ trading partners have worsened. He also added that visibility in capital markets is still limited so no solid forecasts can be made at the moment for the Bank’s profitability. Regarding Greece, Keravnos stated
that under the current conditions, no sustainable profitability is expected for the Greek operations, as the difficult economic and financial conditions and the restructuring of the bank in Greece are prohibitive of a reversal in the Greek operations profitability
before 2011.
In another development the Bank submitted a final public offer for the acquisition of up to 100% of the share capital of Athena Cyprus Public Company Ltd (ATH). According to the Public offer’s terms one (1) share of HB will be offered as an exchange for every three (3) shares of ATH. The Bank currently holds 78.6% of the issued share capital of ATH.