They are clearing Elliniko of its contracts

The Privatisation Fund with the… holy mission of reducing the debt by selling or giving up prime public real estate with long- term contracts, is undertaking the operation of "cleansing" the burdens left by the tenants of the Olympic buildings to the Greek government.

Investors interpret these moves as the enforcement of the unconstitutional, in their view, implementation law, which allows the Fund to terminate contracts bypassing any other provision or law, though relevant sources indicate that individuals should abandon public real estate since they cannot meet the obligations of contracts and don’t pay rent.

Also, they consider that the disputed provisions of the implementation law (article 2, paragraph 9) will be an obstacle to development, "tripping up" future investments that will not serve their financial goals.

The big clean-up has started from Elliniko. It began recently with the termination of the contract for the premises of Canoe Kayak that are operated by a joint venture between J&P AVAX, GEK, BIOTER and Corfu Waterpark, on the part of Elliniko SA, which was recently passed to the newly established fund at 100%. This is the company that has been set up to exploit the area of approximately 6.000 acres on the beach and has also undertaken to prepare the documentation to hand over the utilisation of Elliniko.

Moreover, it is no secret that investors of the Olympic buildings have been in arbitration with the state in the last few years, as the former are accusing the latter of not keeping up with their obligations because of delays in approvals of projects, and the latter say that investors are bad payers and thus they are demanding compensations of millions and pointing toward the exit.

As government sources point out, Canoe Kayak is 5% of the area of Elliniko; that is, approximately 300 acres of committed land that does not bring the expected returns for the state coffers.

A similar dispute that has reached the courts has occurred in the case of the prime real estate of Aghios Kosmas, leased to Sirios of the ATTIKAT group. However, information indicates that the case is a bit more complex since the area of over 400 acres has yet to pass to Ellinikos SA.

The reason is that the original plan was to move a section of the Elliniko area above Poseidonos, to the company. Mature thinking prevailed, and the remaining part which is below Poseidonos is soon expected to pass on to Elliniko SA.