Bond yields climb 11 bp
LONDON (Reuters) – Greek bond yields rose yesterday after a senior European Union official said Athens was “highly unlikely” to end its bailout program without some new form of assistance that will require it to meet targets. Yields on Greek 10-year bonds rose 11 basis points to 8.22 percent, reversing an earlier fall to underperform other eurozone bonds. “The market is scared that whatever happens Greece is probably going to be in trouble,” said Gianluca Ziglio, executive director of fixed income research at Sunrise Brokers. “If they go it alone, keeping the IMF program and they lose the EU aid as planned they basically have no safety net ... If they decide to accept a pre-
Airport traffic.
Athens International Airport (AIA) reported yesterday a 28 percent rise in passenger traffic last month, compared with October 2013, reaching 1.43 million. Domestic flights saw a rise of 34.8 percent rise and international ones growth of 24.6 percent. Of particular interest is the 39 percent hike in the number of passengers flying to Athens as their final destination rather than a transit point, illustrating the increasing popularity of the Greek capital as a destination beyond the peak season. In the first 10 months of 2014 AIA reported 20.3 percent growth in traffic to reach 13.1 million passengers, or over 2.2 million
BoC-UK.
Troubled Bank of Cyprus, the largest lender on the recession-hit island, said yesterday it has sold its UK loan portfolio for 361 million euros as part of its restructuring. The loan portfolio – largely composed of residential and commercial real estate-backed facilities – was sold to Mars Capital Finance and Camael Mortgages, said BoC. “Sale of the loan portfolio is in line with the Group’s restructuring plan and is part of the Group’s strategy of deleveraging through the disposal of noncore operations... and strengthening its capital and liquidity position,” it said in a statement. The portfolio is not linked to the group’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Bank of Cyprus UK, but part of a wider UK portfolio transferred after BoC absorbed Laiki Bank.