Shock after the wreck of the National Bank-Alpha deal

The market is shocked after the wreck of the deal between the National Bank and Alpha Bank, on which the government was counting heavily for a climate change in finance.

It’s characteristic that the Finance ministry earlier had rushed to offer its approval of this development, creating the impression that the deal was closed.

Obviously thousands of investors abroad had been betting on the announcement of the ministry, and were placed in the ADR (certificate) of the National Bank currently under negotiation in Wall Street.

It is clear that the responsibilities for the handling of the situation are grave and it is not by chance that circles of the ministry hustled late at night to rectify the unrectifiable situation through leaks!

The dramatic developments came in the afternoon after the rejection of the National Bank proposal by the Alpha Bnak board which, after an hour-long board meeting, described the terms as inexpedient – besides the fact that the proposal contained premiums of 28%.

However, the real reason for the rejection was the fact that Alpha’s position in the new deal would be 29% against 71% of the National Bank, while if the same deal had been concluded in previous years, it would have been at 39% - 61%...

Responding to this rejection, the National Bank and its executives are declaring their surprise for two reasons:

The uncertainty in Alpha’s announcement can be answered directly in the National Bank's proposal. The 25th bank in Europe is created and ultimately, "the lone reed in the field cannot find a better way to deal with the crisis.

The second reason for which the National Bank does not believe in Alpha’s answer is the fact that the shareholder of the specific bank will have a 40% increase in share value in the new bank as the synergies from the merger are estimated at 3,5bil euros.

30% of these synergies goes to the shareholder and the share value increase, according to executives of the National Bank.