By Lefteris Papadimas and Angeliki Koutantou
ATHENS (Reuters) -The announced sale of a 27% stake in Piraeus Bank by Greece's bank bailout fund was met with strong demand on Monday and has already been oversubscribed, two sources close to the process told Reuters.
Piraeus Bank, Greece's third largest lender, will be the third of the big four Greek banks to be fully privatised since last autumn after the upgrade of the Greek economy to investment-grade status.
"Demand is very strong and the offering has been oversubscribed in a few minutes after the books opened," one of the sources said adding that up to 25% will be offered to institution investors and a 2% to retail investors.
A second source confirmed the oversubscription.
The interest in the sale, which was announced on Sunday, is a positive sign for the Greek economy following a decade-long debt crisis that saw the Mediterranean country nearly fall out of the euro before it received three international bailouts.
The initial price range was set between 3.7 and 4 euros per share and the sale will be concluded by March 6, the state-controlled bank bailout fund, known as HFSF, said in a statement late on Sunday.
Piraeus Bank has a market capitalisation of 4.9 billion euros. Its shares were up 3.26% on Monday at 4.1 euros.
"The majority of the bids from investors are in the upper part of the price range," the first source said.
After injecting about 50 billion euros ($54 billion) to prop up Greece's four largest banks in return for shares during the debt crisis which ended in 2018, HFSF started divesting its stakes last year.
It divested its holdings in Eurobank and Alpha Bank and sold part of its stake in National Bank last autumn.
BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs Bank and UBS are acting as joint coordinators for the offering of Piraeus stake.
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Angeliki Koytandou; Editing by Edward McAllister and David Evans)
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