The government is planning to float its 51 percent stake in the Mont Parnes Casino, near Athens, Finance Ministry officials said yesterday. The stake will be listed on the Athens bourse through the state-run Hellenic Tourism Development Company, or ETA, the officials told Dow Jones Newswires. Hyatt Regency Hotels & Tourism SA, which operates Mont Parnes, has a 34.3 percent stake in the casino. Hellenic Casinos Co is currently in the process of selling its 51.57 percent stake in Hyatt Regency to venture capital firm BC Partners. Greek holding and construction firm Hellenic Technodomiki TEV SA holds a 14.7 percent stake in Mont Parnes, which is located just north of Athens. (AP)

Bank workers yesterday denounced attempts to extend their working hours, calling such a move illegal and saying the existing system could only be changed in the framework of a collective labor pact with employers. The Bank Employees’ Federation (OTOE) also said it would press for a 10.3 percent pay rise in negotiations for the 2006 pact, which would include a sum for convergence with pay in other EU members, and the safeguarding of its members’ social insurance rights.

Greece and Italy yesterday decided to jointly promote measures for small islands in the framework of European Union regional development programs. “Under the new provisions of the European Constitution, the idea has matured for the provision of services to islanders, so we have found it important to formulate special positions defining EU obligations to small islands,” said Minister for the Aegean Aristotelis Pavlidis after a meeting with Italy’s Regional Development Minister Enrico La Loggia.

Hellenic Investment Bank, a subsidiary of Marfin Financial Group, has signed an agreement to provide investment consulting services to European Finance Investments Ltd (IRF), which is listed in London’s AIM market. IRF aims at buyouts of financial services companies in southeastern Europe, including insurance companies.

Hyundai Corp, a South Korean foreign trading company, said on Sunday its shipbuilding arm in China had won shipbuilding orders worth a combined $297 million from two Greek companies. Qingdao Hyundai Shipbuilding Co Ltd, 80 percent-owned by Hyundai, will build nine bunkering tankers for Greece’s Aegean Bunkering Service and 16 chemical tankers for Evalend Shipping Co, Hyundai said in a statement. (Reuters)