ECONOMY

Investors incur losses of more than 4.5 bln

Major foreign investors in Greece have incurred losses of more than 4.5 billion euros in total from the drop of asset values in their Greek portfolios. This concerns significant institutional investors who believed in the Greek effort and supported it, but are now seeing their investments vanish.

The vast majority of these losses, with some positions already liquidated, originate from the decline in the value of stakes controlled by foreigners in local banks and of Greek corporate bonds.

Well-informed market sources say that foreign institutionals such as BlackRock, WL Ross & Co, Fidelity Investments, Templeton, Paulson & Co, Capital Group of Companies, Fairfax Financial Holdings, Wellington Management Company and several other smaller funds have invested about 90 percent of the 8.2 billion euros placed in Greek lenders during their recapitalization.

Since the share capital increases, bank stock prices have suffered losses of about 50 percent, which translate into a cumulative value loss of 3.4 billion euros, the same sources explained. Another 1.2 billion euros should be added to that as it stems from the slump in the prices of Greek bank and corporate bonds issued in the last 18 months, whose nominal price stands at 4.5 billion euros.

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