Thanks to its strategic partnership with UniCredit, Alpha Bank is an ideal ally of Greek businesses in their effort to strengthen their extroversion and competitiveness, Alpha Bank’s Chief of Commercial Banking, Tilemachos Georgakis, said in his speech at the Export Summit X organized by the Hellenic Exporters’ Association-SEVE.
He added that the Greek banking system is able to contribute to the development of Greek businesses, providing both financial and advisory assistance.
“Greek banks can support business both on financial and advisory terms. Regarding Alpha Bank, our recent agreement with UniCredit offers us the opportunity to access 13 major European markets, such as those of Italy, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary,” Georgakis emphasized in a statement.
The Chief of Commercial Banking of Alpha Bank stressed the need for Greek businesses to become more extroverted and highlighted the importance of their growth in achieving this goal.
“The Greek market is finite and very small, compared to the European market. One only has to consider that our country’s GDP is approximately 1.3% of the EU’s GDP. Therefore, for many Greek businesses, extroversion is not just an option, but the only option,” he emphasized and added:
“However, when a business wants to penetrate foreign markets, it will find multinational ‘giants’ that it must face. And that is precisely where it needs to have, on the one hand, the product that will differentiate it from the competition, and on the other hand the size to be able to stand up to its competitors. When 99.9% of the number of Greek businesses are characterized as small and medium-sized, the stakes of growth are high.”
Georgakis explained that the desired size can be achieved either through organic growth or through mergers or acquisitions. In the first case, investments in equipment and human resources are required, aimed at creating new products, improving quality, and reducing costs. However, this is a time-consuming and sometimes limited process. Also, a necessary investment may not be economically advantageous for the size of an SME.
In the case of a merger or acquisition, there is not only a benefit from the economies of scale that will be created, but also the possibility of direct access to new markets, products, and technology.
However, the Chief of Commercial Banking of Alpha Bank acknowledged that the acquisition is not an easy decision when a shareholder who controls and manages a business, which he himself created or is a successor to it as a second or third generation, is asked to switch to a co-management scheme or to a scheme that will have a minority stake. “If the answer to the dilemma of whether to merge or not is based solely on financial criteria, then the shareholder must decide how, through his choice, he will increase the value of his assets in the business, regardless of the final percentage of participation in it,” Georgakis estimated.
