NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus’s Laiki Bank said yesterday it was in talks with Greece’s Marfin Financial Group and Egnatia Bank on furthering cooperation, possibly including a three-way merger. “Laiki Bank is examining plans for cooperation, which include the merger of the three banks,” it said. “No decision has been reached. The plans cannot proceed before the evaluation of the banks, on all relevant matters, the approval of their boards of directors and the approval from the regulatory authorities of Cyprus and Greece,” it said in a stock market filing. Laiki is Cyprus’s second-largest commercial bank and has a small subsidiary in Greece, Laiki Hellas. Marfin Vice Chairman and CEO Andreas Vgenopoulos told shareholders in Athens on Thursday that talks were well advanced to create a bank network of about 150 branches and assets of 21 billion euros. Marfin acquired 9.98 percent of Laiki in February.

Exhibition organizer Helexpo and Olympic Airlines reached a deal yesterday to promote each other through publicity, discounts and other privileged services. Helexpo specifically announced that commercial visitors to the tourism exhibition Philoxenia on November 16-19, 2006 can enjoy massive discounts on OA flights to Thessaloniki, at 50 percent for domestic flights and 75 percent for international ones.

Greek industrial output fell 1.8 percent year-on-year in February after a 1.5 percent rise in January, with manufacturing also shrinking 3.3 percent, the National Statistics Service (NSS) said yesterday. NSS attributed the drop in manufacturing to lower production in chemicals, apparel and textiles. It said higher energy output was mainly due to increased natural gas production. (Reuters)

US private equity firm Texas Pacific Group has sealed a strategic cooperation deal with Turkey’s Mey, maker of the country’s most famous tipple, raki, the drinks company said. No financial details were given for the deal between one of the largest private equity firms and Mey’s owners, and no one at the former state-owned alcohol monopoly was available to comment. Bankers said earlier this year that Mey was considering an initial public offering, though Chief Financial Officer Kamil Yavuz said in February such a deal was not being planned. (Reuters)

Bank of Cyprus said yesterday it expected after-tax profit to have “significantly improved” in the first quarter of this year against both the first quarter and the last quarter of 2005. The bank will issue results on May 11 for the quarter ended March 31, it said. (Reuters)

EFG Eurobank is Greece’s first bank to be certified to OHSAS 18001 and ELOT 1801 on health and safety conditions for its staff, it said in a statement.