National Bank

Four investors submitted binding bids to acquire a majority stake in Greek lender National Bank's (NBG) insurance unit, a banking source close to the deal told Reuters on Tuesday.

Greece's second largest lender by assets is looking to sell its National Insurance subsidiary as part of a restructuring plan it has agreed with regulators to exit from non-banking operations.

Greece's second largest lender by assets National Bank was profitable for a second straight quarter in October-December, helped by lower bad debt provisions.

NBG, 40 percent owned by the country's bank rescue fund HFSF, on Thursday reported a net profit of 73 million euros, excluding assets held for sale and discontinued operations, versus net earnings of 6 million euros in Q3.

The state's representatives on the governing boards of the country's systemic banks have to resign as they do not fulfill the criteria of the law the government introduced after the 2015 negotiations with Greece's creditors.

Greece's second-largest lender National Bank (NBG) agreed to sell its entire 99.8 percent stake in its South Africa Bank of Athens (SABA) subsidiary to AFGRI Holdings as part of an EU-approved restructuring plan, the bank said on Tuesday.

The submission of binding offers for the acquisition of National Bank's insurance arm appears to be just a matter of days, if not hours, following the rejection by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition of Greece's request to suspend the sale.

The Polish ambassador to Podgorica, Irena Tatarzynska, told BIRN that Russian military officer Eduard Shishmakov, one of the leading suspects in the alleged coup plot in Montenegro, was thrown out of Poland due to a spying accusation.

Alpha, the Greek stock market's best performing bank in the last 12 months, led blue chips and the bourse benchmark to a third day of gains on Tuesday, although the second bailout review's eagerly awaited conclusion did not get any closer.

The prospect of an agreement between Athens and its creditors in Brussels on Friday fueled stock prices at Athinon Avenue and went some way toward dispelling the sense of despair that had culminated on Thursday. Bank investors finally had something positive to act on, leading the credit sector stocks to a rise of 6.61 percent. However, it wasn't enough to offset all of the week's losses.

The mergers and acquisitions (M&A) chart of Greece in 2016 that PricewaterhouseCoopers presented on Wednesday showed that foreigners have been acquiring assets in Greece while Greeks have generally been selling.

National Bank of Greece agreed to sell a 99.1 percent stake in its Bulgarian unit United Bulgarian Bank (UBB) and its fully owned leasing subsidiary Interlease EAD to Belgian bank KBC Group, National Bank said on Friday.