Investment in local firms stays low on weak growth
Investments in Greek enterprises remain at low levels. Although they increased last year compared to 2017, they still failed to reach a satisfactory amount, according to data compiled and processed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Despite the drop in the value of Greek companies, they are unable to attract investment capital due to the country’s weak economic growth.
The study on mergers and acquisitions in Greece last year that PwC presented on Thursday showed local firms attracted investments of 5.5 billion euros. This was up 7 percent on 2017, an increase driven by M&A moves that doubled last year to 3.8 billion euros from 1.9 billion in 2017.
Unlike the M&A deals, last year witnessed a major decline in corporate bond issues and privatization revenues: There were four corporate bond issues last year, led by OTE’s, which was worth 400 million euros. All four raised 635 million euros, down from the 1.87 billion raised by Greek companies via nine bond issues in 2017. Takings from privatizations dropped 26 percent to 1 billion from 1.4 billion the year before.
PwC projects that there are M&A transactions worth 2 billion euros ready for implementation in 2019, mostly in shipping, and sees privatization revenues of 2.7 billion.
