Eurobank officially increases stake in Hellenic Bank

Eurobank has officially increased its stake in Hellenic Bank (HB) to 29.2%, after completing the acquisition of Wargaming Group’s 13.41% holding. Wargaming remains HB’s fourth biggest shareholder.

Announcing the news on the Athens Stock Exchange, Eurobank said that following up on its initial announcement of 1 December 2022, it has now received the necessary supervisory approvals to complete the acquisition of Wargaming’s stake.

The news was also confirmed by Wargaming, which said it had sold its stake in HB for €70m to Eurobank and that it still remains HB’s fourth-largest shareholder, retaining a 6.8% holding in the bank.

Overall, Wargaming has invested €127m in Hellenic, taking part in the bank’s share capital increase in 2013 during the banking and economic crisis, resulting in Hellenic Bank being the only Cypriot bank that adequately covered its private sector capital needs during the crisis without requiring state aid or a haircut on deposits.

Wargaming has participated in all share capital increases of the bank over the past decade. It contributed €40m as part of the first share capital increase in 2013, while it also made another two investments of €63m and €24m, in 2014 and 2019, respectively.

During the past ten years, Hellenic Bank has grown into a bigger and stronger banking and financial institution, an announcement said.

The goal of Wargaming’s investment in Hellenic Bank was to support the Cyprus economy and make the lender more robust – a goal that has been fully achieved.

The announcement added that Christodoulos Hadjistavris will continue to represent Wargaming on Hellenic’s Board of Directors. Hadjistavris said that Wargaming continues to believe in Hellenic Bank’s future as well as its growth prospects. “Wargaming sold 13.4% of its shares (out of a total stake of 20.2%) to Eurobank – who is a credible counterparty that can add value to Hellenic – and not to an opportunistic investor,” he said.