Attica Bank manages to plug most of its shortfall

Small Greek lender Attica Bank said on Wednesday it had raised 90.96 percent of the 749 million euros it sought to plug a capital shortfall identified in a stress test conducted by the country’s central bank.

In October, the Bank of Greece carried out a comprehensive assessment of Attica, in line with the European Central Bank’s health check of Greece’s four big banks – National, Piraeus, Eurobank and Alpha.

The assessment showed the lender had a 1.02-billion-euro capital hole under an adverse scenario in the stress test and a shortfall of 857 million euros under a baseline scenario.

The adverse-scenario capital gap was later reduced to 749 million euros after taking into account other capital support actions.

Attica, which has 79 branches, said it had raised 681 million euros through a share offering with preemptive rights to shareholders, which was priced at 0.30 euros per share.

The bank’s chief executive, Alexandros Antonopoulos, told Reuters the capital increase boosted Attica’s core equity capital ratio to 22.6 percent.

[Reuters]