Greece’s NBG selling insurance sector – Restructuring banking branches to follow

The Greek banking institution National Bank of Greece (NBG) expects to sell its insurance branch, National Insurance, in 2017 and plans to sell other branches as part of the process of restructuring, stated CEO of the financial institution, Leonidas Fragiadakis.

In December 2016, the second biggest Greek bank hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as advisors on the sale of the insurance sector, as per unnamed sources.

Fragiadakis claims that the bank would like to keep the insurance sector, but says that this is a part of the process of restructuring and the bank’s commitments. He expects that this might be completed by the end of 2017.

Last week, NBG sold its Bulgarian branch office, United Bulgarian Bank, to KBC for EUR 610 million, whereas the Turkish branch office, Finansbank, was sold in June 2016 to the Qatar National Bank for EUR 2.7 billion.

Fragiadakis adds that NBG, which also operates in Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Romania and Cyprus, is planning a further sale of its branches as part of the restructuring process in the effort of making itself profitable by focusing on the domestic market, Wisebroker reports.

National Bank of Greece S.A. Grčka

Vojvođanska banka a.d. Novi Sad

Goldman Sachs New York

Morgan Stanley New York

KBC Bank AG Brüssel

National Bank of Greece

NBG

National Insurance Greece

Leonidas Fragiadakis

Goldman Sachs

United Bulgarian Bank

KBC

Finansbank Turkey

Qatar National Bank