Leading names of the international investment community have been placed on the Greek stock market and a new generation of investors, more “quality” and long-term, is being created for Greek assets, after the recovery of investment grade.

Of course, even in the midst of the crisis, there were the bold ones who saw opportunities in the Greek stock market. First and best is the big investor John Paulsonwho in 2013 started investing in Greek banks, assuming that sooner or later Greece would turn the page.

At the same time in Greece was also Mark Mobius of Templeton, the manager of the largest long-term emerging market mutual fund asset, $815 billion in Greek equities, saying it was the best time to invest in Greece. The so-called “guru” of emerging markets was also here in 1987 and the then Sophokleus achieved the second best performance worldwide.

Since then there have been ups and downs. Greece has regained the investment grade and the confidence of the markets, the fiscal is on a good track, the growth rates are multiple of those of the EU and the banks have changed… book.

Leading names of the international investment community rushed to place themselves in its placements Nationalher Piraeusin its IPO Athens International Airportas well as in large listed placements, such as MetlenJumbo and GEK TERNA.

Large investment houses such as Fidelity, Capital Group, Blackrock, Lazard, Norges, Allianz, Wellington, GIC (the sovereign fund of Singapore), the Dutch Romerco and the American one IRWS. Helikon Investments as well as the GIC and Fiera Capital.

The “thirst” of international investors for Greek assets is increasing steeply after the recovery of the investment grade. A fact that is reflected in the large offers for Greek assets, which approached 120 billion euros, in 2024.

Offers for government bond issues so far, within 2024, together with reissues, amount to 74 billion euros.

Systemic banks in the same period collected offers of almost 37 billion euros through the disinvestment process, but also through bond issues. Banks through the disinvestment of the HFSF by Piraeus and National Bank attracted total offers of 17 billion euros, while the four systemic banks since the beginning of 2024 have collected offers of 20.8 billion euros from the bond issue.

In 2024, the stock market drew from offers that exceeded 30 billion about 3.3 billion euros.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the so-called Government Pension Fund Global, one of the largest investors in the world that recently announced third-quarter profits of $76.3 billion, has a significant presence in the Greek stock market and recently stated that it has placed his target is PPC stock.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, which has firepower of around 1.7 trillion. dollars, is already invested in 36 listed on the Athens Stock Exchange and has invested about 770 million dollars.

The ten largest holdings based on holding value are Eurobank, Ethniki, Piraeus, Metlen, Jumbo, Motor Oil, GEK TERNA, OPAP, Alpha Bank and OTE.

A few days ago, Mr. A. Exarchou, CEO of Intrakat Group – AKTOR and partner of Thrivest Holdings, stated that he was surprised by the expression of investment interest in participating in the capital increase of Attica bank by the Canadian fund Fiera Capital, the which manages 158 billion Canadian dollars and has already been placed in National, Piraeus and Cyprus.

According to the latest HEXA data on the largest listed companies, large foreign investors holding more than 5% of the share capital are as follows:

Alpha Bank: Unicredit with 9.6% and Peggeborgh Invest BV with 5.2%

Eurobank: Fairfax Financial Group with 33.47%, The Capital Group with 5.14% and Helikon Investments with 5.08%.

National: The Capital Group with 5.06%

Piraeus: John Paulson with 18.62%

Jumbo: FMR LLC with 9.99% and The Capital Group with 5.05%

Metlen: Fairfax with 6.43%

Sarantis: FMR LLC with 10.45%

PPC: CVC Capital Partners with 10% and Helikon Investments with 6.97%

EYDAP: John Paulson with 9.99%

Elector: Peggeborgh Invest B.V with 48.16%, Atlas NV with 9.798%