Shearman & Sterling Advises Piraeus Bank S.A. on its €1.75 billion equity offering

Shearman & Sterling advised Piraeus Bank S.A. – the largest financial group in Greece by assets, loans, and deposits – on its €1.75 billion equity offering led by Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs as Joint Global Coordinators.

The purpose of the offering was to redeem €750 million of preference shares held in Piraeus Bank by the Greek state in the context of the 2008 Hellenic bank support plan and to meet capital adequacy criteria recently announced by the Greek banking regulator.

The offering was the first to launch in Greece following the recapitalisation of Greek banks in the summer of 2013 by the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (an entity set up under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the European Central Bank), and involved solely private investor participation, showing the Greek banking sector is bouncing back from the world’s biggest sovereign debt crisis.

The Shearman & Sterling team of lawyers in the firm’s London, Washington, DC and Brussels offices was led by Capital Markets partner Apostolos Gkoutzinis and included partner David Dixter, associates Dimos Papanikolaou, Kely Pesketzi and Lulu Zhou; Finance partner James Duncan, associate Barry Cosgrave; Tax partner Kristen Garry and the late partner Iain Scoon, counsel Simon Letherman and associates Gabriel Ng and Judy Fisher; Anti-trust partner Stephen Mavroghenis and associate Athina Kontosakou advised on state aid matters.

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