Worries grow among foreign fund heads
Investors both in and outside of Greece are expressing concern about the recent political developments in e-mails to the Finance Ministry, the Bank of Greece and the managers of the country’s main banks.
The correspondences from foreign funds refer to the suspension of their activities in Greece until the country’s political situation becomes clearer. This is also the message that the heads of the country’s major listed companies are getting from the hedge funds and other investors who had entered their share capital in the last couple of years, improving their cash flows.
Since last Monday, when it was announced that the election of a new president would be brought forward, foreign investment managers have been asking stockbrokerages for more information on a daily basis. Almost all foreign embassies in Greece are trying to decode political developments to inform their governments, while officials from a number of private equity funds – not just from the US and Europe but also other countries such as Argentina, Brazil and China – have arrived in Athens to try to assess the level of risk that the country currently presents.
