The Bank of America Financial Conference is being held September 24-26
By Panagiotis Rougalas
The investment community is focused on a conference in London that will take place at the end of September, a conference in which Cypriot banks will also participate. One will be Bank of Cyprus, but Hellenic Bank will also have indirect representation through Eurobank S.A., which owns 55.9% of it, and is therefore its subsidiary. Alpha Bank Cyprus and National Bank of Greece (Cyprus) will also be potentially represented, through their parent companies in Greece who will be present at the investor conference in London. However, Bank of Cyprus is scheduled to send its top management team to participate in the days of the conference.
It is no coincidence that the interest gathered by Cypriot banks is the good ratings that Cyprus has received from rating agencies.
The Bank of America (BofA) conference will take place in London from September 24 to 26, also known as the 29th Annual Financials CEO Conference 2024. The program of the Greek banks which also have subsidiaries in Cyprus is not known, although it is given that due to the good results and the latest developments, they will also have a rich program. As “K” is informed, the Bank of Cyprus (BoC) has scheduled approximately 10 meetings with investment funds. This planning was done before the bank's announcement of the suspension of the trading of its shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and its inclusion in the Athens Stock Exchange (ATH), so the meetings will probably become more “dense”. with the investment community and large investment funds. This development, as is easily understood, creates new interest, for which the investment community will want to receive answers and will want to “listen to the story” of the bank again.
The day that the Bank of Cyprus has set as the target for the start of trading of its shares on the Athens Stock Exchange is not accidental. September 23rd will coincide with the start of the BofA Conference in London, so it will create a “special interest” event. It is recalled that the introduction of the Bank of Cyprus share will come into effect at 10:15 am. (Cyprus time)/10:15 am (Greece time)/8:15 am (Irish time) on September 23, 2024. As already announced by the Bank of Cyprus, its Board of Directors believes that the listing on the A.E. and delisting from the LSE have the potential to deliver a number of long-term strategic benefits for both the bank and shareholders, and strengthen the bank's market presence. In particular, as noted a few days ago, the Board of Directors believes that the Listing and Delisting have the potential to enhance liquidity in the Ordinary Shares and improve the visibility of Bank of Cyprus in the market from a potentially wider investor base, through the listing of in a market compatible with the BoC profile. Finally, he estimates that the transactions in the more concentrated system of the AX market. and the increased possibility for comparison with peer banks, may attract long-term institutional shareholders to Bank of Cyprus.
At the same time, it is worth noting that, just less than a week before, the Annual General Meeting of Hellenic Bank will have taken place, where after its completion, 3/4 of the Bank's Board of Directors will have been replaced by persons from Eurobank, but it will have and changes in its management team, starting with Mr. Michalis Louis who will become the new CEO of Hellenic.
Many investors
At the Conference that will take place in London on those days from 24 to 26 September, among the participants will be institutional investors with large investment portfolios, such as Fidelity Group, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, Millennium, Credit Suisse, Amundi and many other big sound investment names.
At least from the Cypriot side, the Bank of Cyprus is traditionally active in such investment conferences. From time to time, people from the BoC's top management team have noted in “K” that the goal of the bank and the contacts it makes through these conferences is to get investors with a “long” direction to enter the bank, whether it is transformed into shares, or in bonds.
There is momentum
It is no coincidence that the interest gathered by the Cypriot banks is the good ratings that Cyprus has received from the rating agencies. With the good evaluations they have received, they have positively dragged the Cypriot banks along, seeing a few days after an upgrade of the state, they were also upgraded. In 2024, Fitch and Standard And Poor's upgraded the country's creditworthiness to BBB+, DBRS Mornigstar confirmed the country's rating at BBB (high) and Moody's upgraded the country's outlook from stable to positive (it has a Baa2 rating). In the coming months, it is not excluded that the positive momentum of the evaluations of the Cypriot economy will continue, starting from September 20 with DBRS and completing the cycle in December with Standard and Poor's.
