(Bloomberg) -- Greece is selling a 10% stake in National Bank of Greece as a part of a privatization drive that has seen the state exiting from lenders in the past year.
The price range for the deal has been set at €7.30 to €7.95, the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund — a bank recapitalization tool established at the start of Greece’s bailout programs — said Monday. The upper end of the range is higher than Friday’s close at €7.84. This means that Greece could raise as much as €727.2 million ($812 million) from the sale.
The books are expected to close on Wednesday at 2 p.m. London time. This will mark the end of a state-sale cycle that saw Greece fully exiting from Eurobank Ergasias Services and Holdings, Alpha Bank and Piraeus Bank. Still, the state will keep a 8.4% holding in National Bank of Greece. In November the HFSF also sold a 22% stake in National Bank raising €1.06 billion.
The Greek economy is outperforming most of its European peers. Last year the country regained investment grade status which it had lost in 2010 when its debt crisis started. As a result of the crisis, lenders were left with a huge pile of soured debt, but now the non-performing loan ratio has moved closer to the European average.
In a further sign of a gradual return to normality, Greek banks were also allowed this year to pay dividends for the first time since 2008.
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