Piraeus Bank's stock offering seen oversubscribed -Goldman

ATHENS- Piraeus Bank's equity offering to raise up to 1.38 billion euros ($1.66 billion) is likely to be oversubscribed, Goldman Sachs said on Wednesday as books opened for the international placement with institutional investors.

"From the premarketing and marketing effort, we have received indications of interest from wall-crossed investors including cornerstones well in excess of the deal size," it said.

Goldman Sachs and UBS are the global coordinators on the equity issue. Joint bookrunners include JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley, Ambrosia Capital, AXIA, Euroxx Securities and Piraeus Securities.

Cornerstone investors in Piraeus Bank include Paulson & Co. with 265 million euros, Helikon Investments with 75 million and Aristotelis Mystakidis with 40 million, one of the bookrunners said.

The lock up period for the cornerstone investors is 90 days.

One of Greece's four big lenders, Piraeus Bank has announced an equity offering to raise between 1.2 billion and 1.38 billion euros via a placement with international investors and a domestic public offering. 

The bank will issue 1.2 billion new shares and will allocate 85% to the international placement and the remaining 15% to a domestic public offering

The international placement and the domestic public offering will take place simultaneously and the offering will be priced at between 1 euro and 1.15 euros per share. 

The bank, 61.3% owned by Greece's Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF), has said the new share offering will dilute the HFSF's stake to a minority holding without any blocking power, meaning it will be below 33%.

The HFSF fund supports the capital boost and will subscribe to acquire new shares so that its holding falls to between 27% and 33%.

The fundraising is part of the bank's plan to "drastically accelerate" its reduction of non-performing loans through securitisation, a capital increase and cost cutting.

($1 = 0.8333 euros)

(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos, additional reporting by Arno Shuetze; editing by Jason Neely and Chizu Nomiyama) ((george.georgiopoulos@thomsonreuters.com; +30210 337 6437; Reuters Messaging: george.georgiopoulos.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

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