Tender Offer Drives Interest in National Bank of Greece

ADRs in New York trading have opened much higher and are currently up about 18% at $8.30, against what is an adjusted 52-week trading range of $5.64 to $32.50. The driving force behind today’s price jump is that NBG has launched a tender offer to repurchase its ADS preference shares listed in the U.S. for a total of $281 million.

We found the SEC filing, which shows all the details.

As a reminder, the bank also has a preferred share listing in the United States. An article on Reuters said, “The bank is offering to buy back up to 22.5 million American Depository Shares out of the 25 million outstanding for $12.50 each, at a 50 percent discount to their nominal value… ”

Tender offers are often accomplished only in past because many holders tender their shares above and beyond the amount that a company is willing to (or able to) accept. In those cases, usually investors get some sort of prorated transaction amounts. In the past when we saw this from U.S. regional and community banks, the common shares rarely traded at or above the tender offering price on the open market trading.