London, Thanasis Gavos

Satisfied with the increased investor interest at the second conference he organized with Morgan Stanley at the bank’s headquarters in London, he expressed the managing director of the Athens Stock Exchange Group, Giannos Kontopoulos.

Speaking from the British capital to SKAI at the end of the conference, which had opened on Monday with the participation of the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakou Mitsotakis, Mr. Kontopoulos noted that the investment interest this year concerned more sectors of the Greek economy.

As he mentioned, the conference proved to be a very good opportunity to present the new investment image of Greece to foreign investors.

“It also happened to come immediately after the recovery of the investment grade and as I think the chances of an upgrade of our stock market towards the developed markets in the coming years are prescribed. All this helped to present a very good image”, said Mr. Kontopoulos,

He added that what makes the difference is the image of the Greek economy, with growth rates much higher than the rest of Europe.

Noting that the number of listed companies represented at the conference was much higher than last year, he noted that there were more and higher quality investors who attended. He spoke about the characteristics of the participation “which tell us that the interest in Greece is constantly increasing and of course why we have this diversification and the transition to the new investment track, which I think will also change the image of the market in general”.

Asked which sectors of the economy represented by the listed companies attracted the most interest, Mr. Kontopoulos remarked: “The interest (to say) would be that we didn’t have that concentration that we usually had in the past. In other words, Greece, at least its stock market, is bank-heavy. The fact that we had a lot of interest in different sectors of the economy that are represented on the stock market in itself I think is a very positive development.”

Asked to comment on the importance given to the conference by the presence of the prime minister, the head of the Greek Stock Exchange commented that it “always makes a difference” and added:

“What I think changes significantly, it also radically changed the image, is that now, as strange as it may seem, Greece is associated with the word stability”.