Aegean Marine Petroleum Network, one of the world’s largest traders of shipping fuel, has filed for bankruptcy protection in New York, allowing the company to undergo a restructuring with the help of rival trader Mercuria as a precursor to putting itself up for sale, the Financial Times reported. The move into Chapter 11 follows the confirmation last week of a write-off of $200m of expected payments that Aegean said “lacked economic substance”, adding that another $100m may have been “misappropriated through fraudulent activities”.
Read more
The EU is a bully. The EU is inflexible and unjust. Our proud nation must no longer submit to the diktats of Brussels and its accomplices. These complaints of Brexiters in the UK resemble the indignation of some Greeks about their nation’s treatment during the eurozone’s sovereign debt and financial sector crises, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. The British government and people, still unable to settle on a definition of Brexit, can learn from Greece’s long, painful struggle. Some lessons offer grounds for hope.
Greece’s central bank governor has blamed Italy’s market turmoil for a drop in the share prices of Greek banks, saying that the falls “are not related to the soundness of Greek banks”. Italian government bonds have seen a fresh sell-off in recent days, as investors mull the growing likelihood that Rome will face-off against Brussels over a budget-busting spending plan, the Financial Times reported. In the past two weeks the yield on 10-year Italian debt has risen by 80 basis points, to hit 3.712 per cent — its highest level since early 2014.
Read more
Burdened by the highest ratio of bad loans in Europe, Greek banks have no shortage of challenges. And that was before Greece -- the continent’s most indebted state -- decided to end its bailout program in August without requesting a follow-up lifeline backed by European creditors, Bloomberg News reported. If doubts about the state of their balance sheets aren’t addressed, concerns about the fate of Greek banks could spiral out of control.
Read more
Some of Greece’s biggest banks suffered steep share price falls on Wednesday as investors worried they may not have enough capital to meet fresh targets on reducing their large portfolios of bad debts, the Financial Times reported. Shares in Piraeus Bank, the country’s largest lender by assets, dropped more than 20 per cent, cutting its market capitalisation to less than €600m. The bank responded by trying to reassure investors that its plan to boost capital by issuing €500m of subordinated bonds was still on track.
Read more
Greece wants to repay loans owed to its lenders from the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund before they are due in a bid to cut its debt servicing costs, its finance minister said on Tuesday. Greece, whose public debt amounts to 180 percent of its gross domestic product, has received loans totalling about 280 billion euros under three international bailouts since 2010, Reuters reported. The ECB holds about 12 billion euros worth of Greek debt with an average maturity of four years and the IMF about 10 billion euros with an average maturity of three years.
Read more
The Greek government is urging bailout inspectors to drop their insistence that it cuts pension further next year, arguing the country is on target to beat budget targets without doing so, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. In its draft 2019 budget, tabled to parliament Monday, the government said Greece's economy will grow 2.5 percent next year, with debt and unemployment steadily falling too. In the 44-page document , it said the issue of pension cuts would be decided later this year.
Read more
The Greek government is owed so much in tax arrears from households and companies that it could pay off more than half its massive public debts if it collected it all. Unfortunately for the government, that's unlikely to ever happen, the International New York Times reported on an Associated Press story. Data from the Independent Authority for Public Revenue show tax arrears totaled 182.5 billion euros ($214 billion) on Aug. 10, according to a note sent from the agency to parliament last week and seen by The Associated Press Wednesday.
Read more
Greece will meet primary surplus targets of 3.5 percent of GDP until 2022 as required by its creditors, but the policies to achieve that will be determined by the Greek government, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told the European Parliament on Tuesday. Greece exited the euro zone's bailout programme, under which it received cheap loans in exchange for reforms, in August after eight years of economic restructuring that was necessary when Athens lost market access in 2010 because of its huge debts, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.
Read more
Greek banks made further progress during this year's second quarter in reducing their exposure to doubtful and non-performing loans, central bank data showed on Thursday. So-called non-performing exposures (NPEs) are the biggest challenge facing the sector, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. At the end of June they had fallen by 4.1 percent from the first quarter to 88.6 billion euros (79.7 billion pounds) or 47.6 percent of banks' overall loan book compared with a target of 90.2 billion euros or 46.9 percent.
Read more