Karatzas & Partners advised the Joint Global Coordinators (Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE and UBS Europe SE), the Joint Bookrunners (BNP Paribas, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Ambrosia Capital, AXIA Ventures Group, Euroxx Securities S.A. and Piraeus Securities S.A) and the Co-Managers (Pantelakis Securities S.A. and WOOD & Company), in connection with the international tranche of a non-preemptive combined offering of 1,200,000,00  new, ordinary registered voting shares with a nominal value of €1.00 by Piraeus Financial Holdings S.A. (“Piraeus Holdings”), the financial holding parent company of Piraeus Bank Société Anonyme, one of the four systemic banks in Greece.

The offer price was set at €1.15 per new share through a book-building process outside Greece, amounting to proceeds of €1,380,000,000 to be used in order to facilitate the timely execution of Piraeus’ NPE reduction plan by ensuring an adequate capital position.

This transaction represented the first share capital increase of a Greek financial institution since 2015 and a landmark equity transaction for the Greek capital markets with significant institutional investor participation and the first English language Prospectus to be approved by the Hellenic Capital Market Commission for the Greek public offering, setting precedent for future public offerings in Greece.

Our team was led by Managing Partner Catherine Karatzas and Capital Markets and Financial Regulation Partner Alexandra Kondyli, and comprised our capital markets associates Maria Chronaki, Eleana Rouga, Aris Papadopoulos and Iliana Ioannou.