National Bank of Greece

The board of National Bank of Greece is on Thursday expected to decide whether it will accept Chinese company Gongbao's offer for the acquisition of Ethniki Insurance.

Gongbao was the only bidder in the final stage of binding financial offers for the buyout of 75 percent of Greece's leading insurer, with a bid of 676 million euros.

Economic prosecutors will summon 60 people in a new investigation into the funding of political parties in the period from 2002 until 2012.

The probe will focus on about 50 former banking executives and 10 party cadres for possible breach of faith and instigation to breach of faith, respectively.

Ethniki Insurance has announced pretax profits of 34.1 million euros for the first half of the year, 28.6 percent less than the same period of 2017.

The drop in earnings from last year's 47.8 million euros is attributed to the one-off revenues recorded in 2017 from the sale of stakes in foreign companies.

The second-quarter financial results published by the National Bank of Greece (NBG) on Friday reflected the gradual strengthening of operating profits and of liquidity, and the achievement of the target for the reduction of nonperforming exposures for the entire 2018 already from the first half of the year.

The European Investment Bank and National Bank of Greece have signed a funding agreement up to 200 million euros aimed at financing small and medium-sized enterprises, forming part of the so-called Juncker funding package.

The funding is supplied through the private placement of covered NBG bonds.

The management of National Bank of Greece told the lender's annual general meeting on Thursday that it will place emphasis on the lender's full transformation through changes to its operational model to meet the challenges of the time and the economy's funding needs.

Leonidas Fragkiadakis, the chief executive of National Bank of Greece, tendered his resignation on Friday, on the eve of the release of the Greek lenders' stress test results.

The chief executive of Greece's second-biggest lender, National Bank of Greece (NBG), Leonidas Frangiadakis, submitted his resignation on Friday, after a request by the bank's board, sources said.

Greek banks are seen passing the European Central Bank's stress tests, the results of which will be published in May, the chief executive of the country's second-biggest lender National Bank of Greece said on Monday. 

The new tender for the sale of leading insurer Ethniki will be open to all suitors after the first process attracted interest only from Chinese groups Fosun, Gongbao and Wintime.