With her dominance Bank of Piraeus closes the first front of its confrontation with the shipowner Mario Iliopouloswhose stated goal is to thwart her rescue Anonymous Shipping Company of Crete (ANEK) from Attica Group.

Recall that Seajets, owned by M. Iliopoulos, is the main competitor of Attica Group. Piraeus Bank reported on the stock exchange that as a result of a public offering to shareholders of MIG, Attica Group’s main shareholder, to acquire their securities, its stake in MIG was 87.7%.

This percentage now includes all shares that purchased shares associated with M. Iliopoulos, since, according to the same sources, these securities were offered as part of a public offering.

The bank controls 87.7% and proceeds to swap debts of 450 million for Attica shares.

Piraeus Bank decided to take this step in order to control MIG’s charter majority and prevent the aforementioned businessman, who managed to acquire a stake of more than 10% in MIG, in order to prevent MIG’s “addiction cure”. Attica Group in the first phase from MIG and, secondly, Attica’s takeover of financially troubled ANEK.

To this end, the businessman’s block has made repeated efforts within the framework of the general meeting of shareholders of MIG, as well as in court, filing applications for temporary orders and injunctions so that the MIG share swap agreement does not continue. transportation Attica Group is owned by MIG and its debt is owned by STRIX.

Since Piraeus is the majority shareholder, MIG management agreed a few months ago with creditor STRIX to swap its Attica Group shares (79.38%) for $450 million in debt. Thus, STRIX will become the owner of more than 90% of the shares of Attica (it already owns 12%). STRIX is a subsidiary of Piraeus Bank, managed by independent professional investment manager Blantyre Capital. Piraeus benefits financially from the assets and income of STRIX. Since M. Iliopoulos’ package no longer owns at least 5% of MIG’s shares, a debt-for-equity swap is expected to be finalized next week.

However, Market sources tell “K” that the Iliopoulos side is going within the next twenty-four hours to submit a multi-page report to the Competition Committee, which is currently examining an agreement to rescue ANEC by takeover by Attica, to which it will strongly object, citing competition reasons. Considering that the Competition Commission has already sent out the relevant questionnaires to all Greek ferry companies, as well as users of their services, moving the consideration of the agreement to the second stage, which is expected to last for several more months, it is clear that the transaction will not be completed before this summer season.

Having said that, the market notes that based on the financial data released by Attica Group for 2022, there is a significant improvement in its performance, both in terms of turnover and operating and net profit, while its market valuation and its fundamentals indicate to enterprise value (in terms of EV) over a billion.