NBG chief: will meet 10% funding target

National Bank of Greece CEO Alexandros Tourkolias said he was confident that the bank will cover the 10% of private investors’ participation in a forthcoming share capital increase plan.
The NBG board received EGM approval to proceed with the EUR 9.76 bln share capital increase via the contribution of EUR 1.17 bln in cash and contribution in kind (HFSF), approval to proceed with a reverse split, reduction in the share nominal value, while also receiving approval for the issue of EUR 1.9 bln in convertible contingency bonds, CoCos.
NBG’s CEO stated that “with the reassurances we have so far we believe that we will achieve this goal,” adding that hundreds of thousands of traditional and new shareholders were joining the effort. He also said bank clients, individual depositors, large investors along with the bank’s workers and pensioners were also participating in this effort.
Tourkolias said that NBG shareholders will be asked to decide “over a National Bank we all want: independent, in private hands, healthy, fortified against any risk, dynamic, innovative and the main growth tool for the economy and prosperity of the nation”. He added that there were encouraging signs of stabilisation in the growth rate of bad loans in the first months of 2013, compared with the corresponding period last year.