Greece\'s Piraeus bank sees 9 month takings rise, Eurobank drops

Piraeus Bank and Eurobank, two of the four main Greek lenders, on Friday respectively reported a group net profit of 3.2 billion euros ($4.3 billion) and a loss of 232 million euros in the first nine months of the year. A year earlier, Piraeus had registered a 513-million-euro loss over the same period, while Eurobank was over 1.0 billion euros in the red. Piraeus Bank noted that it had factored into its results a negative goodwill of 3.8 billion euros to take into account a slew of recent acquisitions. Piraeus Bank is Greece's fastest-growing lender, having absorbed the local subsidiary of Portugal's Millennium Bank and the Greek subsidiaries of three Cypriot banks earlier this year. Last year, it had also taken over the healthy part of Greek agricultural lender ATEBank and former Societe Generale subsidiary Geniki Bank. Meanwhile, Eurobank assimilated small lender Proton Bank after its chairman was charged with embezzlement. It also acquired Hellenic Postbank, one of the country's best-capitalised lenders, which the Greek state was obliged to sell under its EU-IMF bailout obligations. All four of Greece's main lenders -- National Bank, Piraeus, Alpha and Eurobank -- were recapitalised as part of the terms included in Greece's latest EU-IMF bailout deal. A period of consolidation of the Greek banking sector followed, with the big four rapidly acquiring smaller rivals and the subsidiaries of foreign banks who pulled out. A sum of 50 billion euros from Greece's EU-IMF rescue loans was earmarked for the recapitalisation of Greek banks following the heavy losses they suffered by taking part in a writedown of privately-held Greek government bonds last year.