Piraeus Bank, Greece’s fourth-largest lender, said yesterday its 1.35-billion-euro rights issue, which ended on September 7, was oversubscribed 1.78 times. Piraeus Bank tapped the capital market with a 1-for-4 rights issue at 20 euros a share to raise funds for further growth. A total of 67,548,758 new common registered shares will be issued. The new shares, entitled to the 2007 dividend, will start trading September 17. The bank, also present in Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Albania, Ukraine and USA, said the capital boost will enable it to continue its expansion in Greece and abroad “at an even faster pace.” It wants to expand its network to 900 branches by 2010 and increase its network outside Greece to 580 branches from a current 243.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) –Turkey’s industrial production grew 3.5 percent year-on-year in July, the Turkish Statistics Institute said yesterday, below a market forecast. The figure compares with a revised 2.3 percent yearly growth in June and 8.7 percent in July last year. A Reuters poll of 10 banks had given a median forecast of 4 percent growth for July. Industrial production, which accounts for around a third of the economy, has suffered a slowdown mainly because of sharp rises in interest rates last year which have bitten into domestic demand. Utilities saw the largest expansion in July with 12 percent growth, followed by the mining sector, which grew 6.3 percent.

Cyprus’s central bank kept its key refinancing rate unchanged at 4.5 percent during a review yesterday, it said. Financial markets were not expecting any adjustment. The Cypriot central bank is expected to phase out the present 50-basis-point spread over the European Central Bank’s refi rate by the end of this year, ahead of Cyprus’s admission to the eurozone on January 1, 2008. (Reuters)

Cyprus’s EU-harmonized inflation rate (HICP) slowed to 2.2 percent year-on-year in August from 2.3 percent in July, the statistics department said yesterday. The HICP rate was lower than headline consumer inflation, which was running at an annual 2.47 percent in August. (Reuters)

Russia’s Alfa Group is interested in buying Turkish supermarket chain Migros, Turkish newspaper Sabah reported yesterday. The paper, citing an official at Alfa, said the Russian firm had started talks and its intentions were serious. Turkish conglomerate Koc Holding said earlier this year it was looking to sell Migros. (Reuters)

Greek-owned gaming systems firm Intralot was listed as a member of the 125-strong, newly founded community of Global Growth Companies, inaugurated at the recent World Economic Forum meeting in Dalian, China.