Milbank and Latham & Watkins Advise on Landmark Share Capital Increase of Greece's Largest Bank

Milbank LLP has advised Piraeus Financial Holdings S.A. (“Piraeus Holdings”), in connection with its offering, through a non-preemptive issue, of 1,200,000,000 new ordinary registered voting shares, each having a nominal value of €1.00 to institutional investors pursuant to a book-building process outside of Greece and retail and qualified investors in Greece with an offer price at €1.15 per new share. Piraeus Holdings is a financial holding company and holds 100% of the share capital of Piraeus Bank Société Anonyme, the largest bank in Greece. This transaction represented the first significant institutional equity raise out of Greece since 2015 and the landmark share capital increase of one of Greece’s largest and most systemically important financial institutions.

The proceeds of the offering will be used to facilitate the timely execution of their NPE reduction plan and ensure their adequate capital position by strengthening their core capital adequacy ratios.

Latham & Watkins advised the Joint Global Coordinators (Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE and UBS Europe SE), the Joint Bookrunners (BNP Paribas, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Ambrosia Capital, AXIA Ventures Group, Euroxx Securities S.A. and Piraeus Securities S.A) and the Co-Managers (Pantelakis Securities S.A. and Wood & Company) on the successful completion of the institutional offering.

The Milbank team was led by European Leveraged Finance/Capital Markets partner Apostolos Gkoutzinis, special counsel Trevor Truman, associates Dimos Papanikolaou, Chara Makrygianni and Lefteris Dafermos. The team also included New York Tax partner Eschi Rahimi-Laridjani, associate David Hanno, New York Alternative Investments Practice partner Catherine Leef Martin and associate Megha Kalbag, London Corporate partner Mark Stamp, European Leveraged Finance/Capital Markets of counsel Patrick Holmes and London Financial Restructuring associate Jag Diogan.

Latham’s deal team was led by partner Ryan Benedict, with associates Giorgio Thomson Ignazzi, Irene Pistotnik and Marta Negro. The team also included New York Tax partner Jocelyn Noll, with Tax associate Michael Syku, London Tax partner Karl Mah, with associates Sean Meehan, Nick Fisher and tax associate Blanca Vazquez de Castro.