The Burning Bush of Sinai and the Egyptian (touristic) tricks, Samaras like GAP, National Bank’s moment, appetite sparked with ELTA, deals are coming

Greetings, the contented of the Sinai Monastery is not new, arsenic Greece has for years been trying to find a look to woody with the Egyptian bureaucracy and the ineligible appeals that began during the play of the Muslim Brotherhood, instantly aft the autumn of Mubarak, and were aboriginal continued by nationalist circles. The extremity is to uproot, aft 15 centuries of operation, the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, to enactment an extremity to this spot being a ineffable tract for the signifier of spiritual duties and monasticism associated with Orthodoxy, and to present it “sanitized” to a tourism improvement that the Egyptian authorities is readying for the full Peninsula nether the rubric “The Great Transformation.” Now of course, from the PM’s bureau they say, successful each tones, privately and publicly, that the existent president Al-Sisi had assured the Greek authorities and K.M that determination would beryllium an statement astatine a bilateral level. According to information, the statement had been concluded, approved some by Archbishop Damianos and by the Egyptian side, and the Greek delegation that had traveled to Cairo for this intent had besides consented. Signatures had been placed by the applicable ministries and lone the signature of the Egyptian Minister of Justice remained. Everyone expected, aft Sisi’s statements successful Athens, that the agreement’s completion process was present simply a formality. Until the bombshell dropped that the tribunal was yet allowed to contented a decision, frankincense imposing a “judicial fait accompli.” It is telling that the statement was considered truthful definite that the Greek ambassador successful Cairo was successful Athens during those days for authoritative duties.

The Greek chill

The archetypal “chill” was felt by Greek diplomats the time earlier yesterday and they duly informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Gerapetritis spoke with his counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, and conveyed that the Greek-Egyptian statement indispensable beryllium honored, while, arsenic of yesterday, the translated substance of the tribunal determination was inactive expected, which the Egyptian broadside had not adjacent bothered to guardant to Athens. Mitsotakis is intelligibly annoyed, who, among different things, besides has a precise adjacent idiosyncratic narration with Al-Sisi. The connection from Athens is that we volition not judge thing little than afloat adherence to the statement betwixt the 2 countries. It is present up to the Egyptians to find a way, arsenic they besides carnivore the work for the fiasco. Of course, depending connected whom 1 believes, either the Egyptian bureaucracy is astatine responsibility for insisting connected an contented that required governmental handling, oregon the Egyptian authorities “hid” down the bureaucracy and the tribunal ruling.

The late-night correction…

Now, precocious past night, aft the planetary uproar caused by this move, determination was a careful—partial—retraction from Egypt’s side. Both the Presidency (Al-Sisi) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that they would not interaction the Holy Monastery and that it would proceed to run normally, etc., etc., but regarding the ownership status… they muddled things—obviously due to the fact that they bash not want, astatine this stage, to admit that yesterday’s tribunal determination stands. That is, fine, the Monastery whitethorn operate, but it—and each the surrounding lands—belong to us. In immoderate case, the contented volition person follow-up oregon even…adventure.

Samaras

I asked my polling root whether there’s adjacent a disturbance astir the expected Samaras party—which I don’t spot happening, conscionable for the involvement of discussion. “We don’t spot it either, but if helium does it, he’ll conflict to person the destiny of GAP—that is, hovering determination astir 3%, springiness oregon take.” Indeed…

Taxi drivers

A fewer words astir taxi drivers, since we’ve clarified that fractional of them enactment decently via apps and are good, hardworking, and conscientious professionals. Well, arsenic for the rest—enough with the spoiling, the brazenness, and the fake tough-guy cognition from the Junta days, we’ve had enough. No autobus lanes, nary exemptions, due taxes, POS, and order. That’s what nationalist sentiment wants too.

In the adjacent “act” the National Bank volition star

Piraeus Bank has J. Paulson, Eurobank has Fairfax, and present Alpha Bank has UniCredit. Everything indicates that successful the adjacent “act” we’ll see, the National Bank of Greece volition play the starring role. The involvement inactive held by the State is the cardinal that opens the doorway to shareholder reshuffling.

Waiting for the Competition Commission

Piraeus Bank has submitted the record for the acquisition of Ethniki Insurance to the Competition Commission and to DG Com. At the bank, they expect the acquisition to formally adjacent by the extremity of the year, provided of people determination are nary objections oregon different ineligible complications that would origin delays. In immoderate case, the determination of the Competition Commission is of interest, and whether the Authority volition acceptable a model of parameters and obligations for the caller shareholder with the purpose of protecting the lawsuit basal of the National Bank held by the Insurance Company. The astir apt script is that the acquisition statement of Ethniki Insurance volition beryllium completed wrong the timeframe anticipated by Piraeus Bank. The file — contempt governmental and supervisory assurances that this is simply a substance betwixt Ethniki and Piraeus Bank, successful which they volition not intervene — estimates that ultimately, and astatine the close time, determination volition beryllium actions taken to forestall the escalation of the quality betwixt the 2 banks.

At ELTA, the appetite has opened. More deals are coming

The statement betwixt ELTA and Alpha Bank for the proviso of analyzable fiscal services marked a pivotal measurement successful their translation journey. It is not simply a collaboration, but a strategical concern with depth, which afloat utilizes the web of 1,100 ELTA branches, offering citizens and tiny businesses crossed the state a afloat scope of banking services done Alpha. While Alpha Bank is the archetypal and main spouse of the initiative, successful the semipermanent readying of ELTA’s management, the information of different banks is besides envisaged. However, not nether the aforesaid terms: the different partnerships nether information chiefly interest basal banking operations, aiming to fortify beingness successful section communities and to guarantee alternate options, particularly successful the regions. The eventual extremity is simply a multi-banking work exemplary — but with wide stratification. The ambition of the absorption is for ELTA to germinate into a reliable and flexible banking entree gateway for all, and with Alpha taking the lead, ELTA is opening up its banking range.

Unibios (formerly VIOSOL) and the h2o business

Unibios is simply a listed S.A. institution connected the Stock Exchange engaged successful technologies for the sustainable and liable usage of water, energy, and the Green Economy much broadly. In the summertime of 2008, it replaced VIOSOL, which was not doing precise well, and was transformed into a Holding company. Unibios has a subsidiary successful Luxembourg, Watera International, which installs h2o attraction systems successful galore countries successful Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Last week, Unibios announced that it sold 1 of its properties successful the Volos Industrial Zone to Metlen and received €3.5 million. At the aforesaid time, it announced that it acquired a French institution that designs, builds, and installs desalination systems powered by star energy, turning seawater and brackish h2o into potable water, called Osmosun. Finally, the erstwhile VIOSOL and present Unibios announced the listing of its Luxembourg-based subsidiary, Watera International, connected the Euronext Stock Exchange. The evident extremity of each these moves is — done the French Osmosun — to grow Watera’s activities with entree to the charismatic h2o attraction and reuse markets of France and Francophone African countries (e.g. Morocco, Algeria, etc.). All of the supra sent Unibios’ banal to the bounds up yesterday, supra €2, and the company’s capitalization supra €35 million. It is worthy noting that yesterday’s trading successful the banal — worthy astir €700,000 — corresponds to a month’s worthy of transactions successful earlier times.

Attica Bank sidestepped the correction

A correction league for banking stocks, but not for Attica Bank. It showed amended show compared to the systemic banks and maintained an upward trajectory for the 4th consecutive day, consolidating its beingness supra the intelligence threshold of €0.8. The banal climbed to a two-month high, with the regular turnover exceeding €1.8 cardinal and the measurement reaching 2.21 cardinal shares. Attica Bank’s instrumentality successful 2025 is estimated astatine +18.3%, approaching with merit the yearly precocious of €0.868.

OTE, ADMIE, and ElvalHalcor

In quiescent operation, OTE continued its “ascent” to a three-year high, completing a affirmative 5×6 that brought it to the borderline of €17.4 for the archetypal clip since June 2022. One of the standouts of yesterday’s league was ElvalHalcor, reaching €2.4 for the archetypal clip since the extremity of January 2024, portion to spot the banal astatine €2.5, we would person to “travel” adjacent further backmost successful time, specifically to April 2021. Among the fewer stocks that resisted profit-taking was ADMIE, which matched its all-time precocious of €3.11, gaining for the 4th consecutive time with momentum from the commencement of operations of the Attica-Crete electrical interconnection. Unibios recorded a double-digit emergence with importantly accrued turnover, breaking the “barrier” of €2 and reaching the highest level since March 2012. A wide affirmative catalyst was the woody to get 65% of the French Osmosun. Finally, BriQ Properties closed successful affirmative territory for the 7th consecutive session, surpassing €2.8, which constitutes a caller all-time record.

He’s not retired of it yet…

Last February, this file wrote astir the ordeal of writer and erstwhile MP Grigoris Psarianos, owed to the engagement of his spot successful the foreclosure saga. I punctual you that helium is besides a “victim” of the Swiss franc story, for a indebtedness primitively amounting to 408,000 CHF successful 2008, for which the National Bank registered a owe pre-notation connected the disputed spot successful the magnitude of 530,400 CHF. However, successful an earlier declaration of assets, it was stated that the archetypal magnitude was 271,955.30 euros and the remaining indebtedness 370,213.07 euros, with a maturity day of the work connected 14/03/2028. It was further noted that “the indebtedness had been issued with a Swiss franc clause and was initially served (7.10.2011) to the said banking instauration with an Extrajudicial Protest-Declaration of Setoff owed to its tortious and unfair commercialized practice, from which I suffered damage, and subsequently a Lawsuit (17.07.2013), which has not yet been tried.” The archetypal auction was scheduled for February 26, 2025, initiated by doValue, with a starting terms of 153,000 euros, and acrophobic an autonomous and autarkic horizontal spot (a hall) connected the 2nd floor, with an country of 100.60 sq.m., located successful Athens, successful the country of “Diavolorema” oregon “Krimnitsa” oregon “Psychiko,” adjacent the Gendarmerie School and connected Mesogeion Avenue, successful an flat gathering constructed successful 1983. It consists of a azygous unfastened space, a W.C., and a balcony facing Mesogeion Avenue, and it is presumed to beryllium utilized arsenic an office. That auction was suspended astatine the past moment. However, it seems the erstwhile MP is not retired of it yet, arsenic connected May 23, the initiating enactment reinstated the spot connected the physics platform, with the repeated auction scheduled for September 10, 2025, and with the aforesaid starting price.

Josef Ackermann successful Athens

Josef Ackermann is 1 of the astir influential bankers successful Europe. The erstwhile CEO of Deutsche Bank, who besides served arsenic president of the Bank of Cyprus, volition talk astatine the “Olympia Dialogues,” a forum organized by the Olympia Group, astatine the Zappeion Megaron. With interlocutors including Deputy Prime Minister Kostis Hatzidakis, National Bank Chairman Gikas Hardouvelis, and Olympia Group CEO Andreas Athanasopoulos, the German banker volition analyse the prospects of the Euro amid the tempest of tariffs. Greeks retrieve good Ackermann’s constructive relation during the Greek situation successful 2010, earlier Greece officially turned to the International Monetary Fund. At the time, Ackermann had projected a Franco-German mechanism, a broad program to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to assistance Greece woody with the liquidity situation and debar an adjacent deeper crisis. Ultimately, Ackermann’s connection was not adopted, and each the tragic events of the memorandum situation followed, not lone successful Greece but besides crossed the remainder of Europe.

A Greek startup expands to the UAE

The operation “From zero to one” refers to the publication by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and cardinal protagonist of President Trump. The publication is simply a usher to innovation and entrepreneurship. In it, Thiel argues that existent advancement is achieved erstwhile we make thing wholly caller (from 0 to 1), alternatively of improving existing ideas (from 1 to n). A diagnostic illustration of this doctrine is simply a caller Greek startup, AI Employee, which managed, wrong 4 months, to make and instrumentality specialized Artificial Intelligence collaborators and agents successful cardinal sectors of the Greek system (telecommunications, banking, and energy), surpassing 1 cardinal euros successful contracts. Now, AI Employee is further expanding successful Greece and the United Arab Emirates, hiring 30 caller collaborators who volition specialize successful vibe coding to proceed its innovative trajectory. Vibe coding is emerging arsenic the astir important reskilling competency for executives, with precocious added worth for economies similar Greece’s, where, owed to the lack of large investments successful GPU Data Centers, flexibility is simply a competitory advantage.

Tel Aviv here

On the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), the emergence is explosive and the returns of galore stocks are unprecedented. With a instrumentality of 130% successful conscionable the past 12 months, led by beardown show successful sectors specified arsenic technology, the defence industry, fiscal services, and pharmaceuticals, this rally has not gone unnoticed internationally, resulting successful the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange receiving important planetary superior inflows. However, determination was a method trouble for respective investors and funds, arsenic banal trading successful the Israeli marketplace takes spot from Sunday to Thursday. This is changing, though, from aboriginal 2026, arsenic the Tel Aviv marketplace aligns with the trading days of astir banal exchanges, and frankincense TASE volition displacement to a Monday done Friday trading week, astatine 14:00 section time, successful bid to observe Saturday arsenic the Jewish time of rest.

The Alternative Market of the Athens Stock Exchange

The strategy of the Athens Stock Exchange is to code comparatively tiny companies with maturation imaginable that could statesman their marketplace travel from the bottommost and emergence higher, to the payment of tiny shareholder investors. Through the listing of companies successful the Alternative Market arsenic good arsenic the Parallel Market, they question companies with concern worth ranging from €50 cardinal to €100 million. Of course, the risks are precocious for investors and the result uncertain. Investors successful the Alternative Market often look the hazard of being trapped, arsenic liquidity is not ever sufficient, nor are the concern ventures of the listed companies guaranteed to succeed, with the best-case script being the banal “hovering” up and down astatine the aforesaid levels with minimal trading. However, successful caller years, determination person been listings—primarily from the IT sector—that person shown affirmative development, arsenic the Alternative Market functions arsenic a trial conduit for introduction into the Main Market. A notable illustration is ONYX, which was listed successful the Alternative Market successful July 2024—then nether the sanction MED—with a valuation of €35 million. Its transportation to the Main Market is presently underway, with a marketplace capitalization exceeding €103 million. All of this, of course, is based connected a task that remains to beryllium realized. At the aforesaid time, to fortify the Alternative Market, taxation incentives were introduced for backstage investors participating successful caller listings (with a 50% deduction up to a maximum of €900,000), a simplification successful the taxation of involvement connected firm bonds from 15% to 5%, and super-deductions for expenses related to institution introduction into the Main Market.

Germany Wants to but Can’t

According to authoritative data, successful 2024, Germany’s nationalist indebtedness reached €2.6 trillion (around 64% of GDP). The caller German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, successful bid to money the country’s ambitious caller defence doctrine, is attempting to widen the maturities of authorities bonds by issuing much 50-year duration bonds. However, the marketplace is not playing along. Long-term involvement rates successful the German enslaved marketplace person surged. The output curve is steepening rapidly. The output connected the 30-year Bund has risen to 3.114%, and astatine the aforesaid time, the output dispersed betwixt the 2-year and 30-year German authorities enslaved has exceeded 1.3%. This is the largest spread since 2019. Given this situation, the German indebtedness absorption bureau (Deutsche Finanzagentur GmbH) is struggling to find buyers for precise semipermanent bonds specified arsenic the 50-year bunds, and for now, it has abandoned immoderate thought of repeating the “miracle” of the 100-year bonds that lone a section government, the authorities of North Rhine-Westphalia, dared to contented successful 2020.

The End of the Yen Carry Trade

For much than 34 years, Japan was globally considered the apical creditor, the astir reliable lender. The monolithic savings of the Japanese steadily and cheaply funded the planetary indebtedness markets. Not anymore. Japan—as announced by its concern minister—has mislaid its “top creditor” presumption successful the world. Germany has risen to archetypal place, though it people has its ain problems to solve. Germany has a ample existent relationship surplus, which reached €248.7 cardinal successful 2024. Japan’s surplus, by comparison, amounted to €180 billion. Additionally, the euro appreciated astir 5% against the yen past year, making Germany’s overseas assets look adjacent larger, particularly erstwhile compared to the yen. All this means that the satellite is seeking caller fiscal ecosystems. Officially, Japan’s downgrade is attributed to the diminution successful savings, its demographic trends that erode the existent relationship surplus, and the accordant depreciation of the yen. In reality, however, the basal origin lies successful the illness of the Yen transportation trade—the quality investors erstwhile had, and nary longer do, to get inexpensive yen and put successful high-yield markets. And present the consequences volition show: The planetary proviso of ultra-cheap yen liquidity is shrinking, volatility is rising successful hazard assets funded by yen, liquidity is tightening successful emerging markets and FX markets that beryllium connected leverage financed by the Japanese yen. As the yen becomes progressively unstable, indebtedness denominated successful JPY becomes much dangerous.