Bank to raise its target
EFG Eurobank, Greece’s third-largest lender, will upgrade its 2009 target for profits coming from foreign activities as it seeks to further expand abroad, its CEO said in an interview with a Greek newspaper yesterday. «According to the targets we had set, 20 percent at least of our profits would come from abroad by 2009,» EFG Eurobank’s chief executive, Nikos Nanopoulos, said. «Now we believe that this forecast will be revised upward.» Eurobank, present in Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland and Turkey, said last month it would seek shareholder approval for a -1.2 billion rights issue to raise funds to expand in Central and Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean region. Foreign profit’s share Group profit from international operations, excluding Poland, Turkey and Ukraine, came to -16.2 million in the first quarter this year, accounting for about 8 percent of the group’s total profit. The bank, with a market value of -12.4 billion, has a network of 1,300 branches and points of sale, including more than 900 outside Greece.
