Bumper Greek Credit Demand Closes Door on Decade-Long Crisis

(Bloomberg) --

Greek companies, once bond-market pariahs, are now so welcomed by yield-hungry investors that a key crisis-era buyer is getting squeezed.

European Bank for Reconstruction & Development got fewer bonds than it requested in Mytilineos SA’s 500 million-euro ($550 million) deal last week, according to people with knowledge of the transaction, who asked not to be identified citing internal policy. Total bids for the energy-to-metals company’s sale surpassed 1.9 billion euros, Mytilineos spokeswoman Antigoni Fakou said.

The EBRD “were highly supportive of this offering, however, there was ample demand from investors to more than cover the bond,” Fakou said. The supranational agency declined to comment on the deal when contacted by Bloomberg News.

The high investor demand contrasts with 2017, when EBRD bought 10% of a Mytilineos note, and it underscores renewed appetite for Greek debt that has seen syndicated sales this year surpass the last three years combined. The 11.3 billion-euro issuance boom reflects the country’s turnaround from a near-decade-long sovereign-debt crisis, as well as investors’ struggle to deploy funds amid negative interest rates.

“The improvement in the Greek economic outlook has allowed companies with healthy financials to benefit from the current hunt for yield,” said Argyrios Gkonis, senior vice president at Axia Ventures Group Ltd., a brokerage in Athens. “The pricing levels achieved also indicate the increasing confidence of international investors in the country and Greek corporates.”

Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA, known locally as OTE, paid the lowest-ever coupon on a euro-denominated junk bond in September. A neighbor of Mytilineos in the Athens suburb of Maroussi, it is paying just 0.875% annually on a 500 million euro seven-year note. The company was upgraded to investment grade at S&P Global Ratings last month.

EBRD has been buying Greek debt since 2017 to help develop the nation’s capital market. The country plunged into a debt crisis after 2009 with a huge national deficit that required three bailouts between 2010 and 2015. The sovereign was shunned in financial markets and local companies were also soon frozen out.

Fast-forward to today and a global hunt for yield is helping borrowers like Hellenic Petroleum and Piraeus Bank SA get deals done.

Mytilineos’s international activities also worked in its favor, according to a banker on the sale. The company makes almost half of its sales abroad, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. OTE has one of the lowest leverage ratios in the entire telecom sector, with some investors calling for it to take on more debt.

To be sure, Greece isn’t out of the woods yet. The International Monetary Fund expects a deterioration in the country’s future debt path as lower projected sovereign borrowing costs may be more than outweighed by a higher debt-to-GDP ratio. Still, the nation recently joined the negative-yielding debt sellers’ club, potentially opening the door to further Greek corporate supply.

“Market is open again it seems for Greek issuance, whether government or corporate,” said Dimitris Dalipis, head of fixed income at Alpha Trust Mutual Fund Management SA. “Investors’ perception has changed.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Tasos Vossos in London at tvossos@bloomberg.net;Priscila Azevedo Rocha in London at pazevedoroch@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Hannah Benjamin at hbenjamin1@bloomberg.net, Chris Vellacott

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