Mazars sponsored the SmithNovak ‘NPL Greece’ conference in Athens

With SSM targets looming and estimates that more than 50% of the bank's Loan Books are NPEs at a value of over 104 billion euros, there is considerable and growing interest in the Greek NPL market.

“Greek banks had a challenging year implementing the new regulation of IFRS 9 and running the Stress Tests for 2018, first amongst their European peers. Now they need to act rigorously in the reduction of NPEs. They have plans to reduce their NPE portfolio by 30 billion euros until 2019 and the time is challenging”, said Ilias Zafeiropoulos,  Head of FIG for Greece and SEE. All together the banks need to successfully restructure 20 billion and liquidate another 10 billion euros in the next one year and half. “Macros, political instability in the region and implementation risks may easily derail this process. If these risks come true banks will have to be even more aggressive in selling their loan portfolios”, he added.

_{Ilias Zafeiropoulos, Partner of Mazars Greece & Head of FIG for Greece and SEE}

Pasquale Urselli, Global Head for Mazars FIG (Financial Institutions M&A) added: “This year Greek banks are going through a more promising market momentum, with exciting NPL deal opportunities for Distressed Investors to tap in Greece. NPL deals are being struck in Greece as we speak”, highlighted Mazars at the latest NPL Greece & SEE Summit in Athens on 30^th / 31^st May. “NPL transactional activity in Greece took off only last year and a robust pipeline makes the case for a propitious market outlook in 2019 and 2020, too”. “Liquidity is still abundant across the global markets but, as the traditional saying goes, ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear’. In more mature European markets, sometimes it can turn out with too many investors chasing too few deals”, he added. Recent data indicate that 96% of Distressed Investors use Financial Advisers to source their investments: Mazars FIG, a globally integrated team providing deal-advisory services, has built strong market insights across Greece and the SEE region.

_{Pasquale Urselli, Global Head for Mazars FIG (Financial Institutions M&A)}