Alpha Bank’s Q3 profit falls
Alpha Bank, one of Greece’s four largest banks, on Wednesday reported a drop in third-quarter profit compared to the previous quarter on weaker net interest income.
Alpha, 11 percent owned by the country’s bank rescue fund HFSF, reported a net profit from continued operations of 43.8 million euros, versus €97.5 million in the second quarter.
Alpha is in the process of securitizing €10.8 billion of impaired loans and selling its loan servicing unit Cepal, a project named Galaxy.
Shedding these legacy loans will relieve its balance sheet, reducing its nonperforming loans in Greece to 13% of total loans, while its ratio of nonperforming exposures will fall to 24%, it said.
“Despite a most challenging environment, we received two binding offers from international high-quality investors and we selected a preferred bidder, with a view to sign our transaction within the year,” CEO Vassilis Psaltis said in a statement.
The bank has picked Davidson Kempner European Partners as the preferred bidder and expects to complete the transaction within the first quarter of 2021.
Alpha Bank said it had outstanding loans of €4.2 billion in Greece under repayment moratoria.
[Reuters]
