Hello, today, since there’s no earth-shattering political or economic news around, I want to start with a story that, given the huge public interest, has become what we used to call a front-page story. These days it also ranks very high on news sites, which of course reach far more people thanks to their technical reach, almost half of Greece. So I read about a “major fraud of ten million euros against the State through illegal tax refunds, involving forty-six individuals and one hundred and fifty-two companies.” The network is reported to have operated through fictitious transactions, shell companies, front men, accountants and tax consultants. The investigation and exposure of the fraud were carried out by the Anti-Money Laundering Authority, under the genuinely excellent former Supreme Court prosecutor Vourliotis. This authority regularly delivers such successes in its work. The problem starts afterwards, when high-profile cases involving shell companies, front men, celebrities, influencers, presenters, singers, businesspeople and so on, exactly the kind of cases the Authority investigates and catches, somehow disappear from view. Quite a few of these cases do take their legal course, tied up by the Anti-Money Laundering Authority. What I think happens instead, in several cases, is that the “laundering” begins in an endless legal process, without the public ever finding out what actually happened, how these fraud cases were ultimately resolved criminally for those responsible. That’s why I’m suggesting that, somehow, once these cases are finally concluded, their outcome should be announced. Even without names, but stating exactly what sentences were handed down to the people who defrauded the State. I’m probably talking nonsense, aren’t I?

Polls

Now, on to current affairs. Yesterday we saw the GPO poll, which started on the first day after the Thessaloniki fair. New Democracy gained a little, everyone else stayed static, but I have the feeling we’ll get a clearer picture later on. Alexis should also be measured, given his remarks, as should Nikos, about whom we heard from Kelly Stamouli (PASOK parliamentary candidate) that he has a sexy husky voice, and she compared him to sweetened milk. Personally, I think his accent is even more alluring.

Samaras, Karamanlis, Salmas, Sofos

Now, I’m told that although Samaras may not have announced his party yet, Marios Salmas has already launched his own campaign as a candidate for Samaras’s party in Athens, in the northern sector. That’s because, they say, even three per cent there would be enough for the new party to win a seat. His slogan is “we are New Democracy, but without Mitsotakis we will also support her government.” He’s also telling everyone that Karamanlis stands behind Samaras. You can imagine what will happen if the party is formally founded and its candidates are asked whether they’ll support New Democracy but with a different prime minister, and journalists start asking for names of possible prime ministerial candidates other than K.M. Before Salmas can be officially announced, he’ll have to get through his “trial by Adonis,” who is set to publish the Novartis case minutes, given that Salmas had agreed to appear as a prosecution witness in America but, in the end, wasn’t called. After that, he’ll also have to beat the well-known lawyer Themis Sofos in the race for the northern sector, who is rumoured to be standing in the same constituency as Salmas.

Alexis’s rings

Strictly ELAS personnel, and no one else, surrounded Alexis Tsipras at yesterday’s maiden appearance at the Thessaloniki fair as leader of his new party. Sector heads, party communications staff, even those who scored own goals from the financial dugout, all were there, but as “President Alexis” put it, mistakes can be forgiven, while personal strategies will face the axe, since he’s learned his lesson the hard way. In any case, Kyveli Marda was also present at the press conference, notching up a string of appearances alongside the former prime minister, something the rest of ELAS’s Thessaloniki branch don’t exactly welcome. As for his economic team, namely Giorgos Houliarakis and Fragkiskos Koutentakis, they chose to sit far from the cameras, up in the hills. Now, although Alexis Tsipras entered the “I. Vellidis” conference centre two minutes past five, leaving “PASOK time” behind, he still attempted a grand opening towards “democratic citizens,” after making clear that Harilaou Trikoupi Street are “competitors” rather than “opponents.” He did, however, suggest that some PASOK figures function more or less as Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s Trojan horses, though even if a second election were needed, that wouldn’t be a “catastrophe,” as he put it, piling more pressure on the democratic base. At the end of the press conference, which ran to more than three hours, ELAS served accredited journalists local delicacies and Ploes wines from Adriani in Drama, to mark the new party’s first appearance at the Thessaloniki fair.

Tsipras (2), the patriotic levy

So, the line Alexis used yesterday when asked about the patriotic levy, “you’ve eaten all my rings,” was inspired (let’s put it politely, rather than saying he stole it from us) by us. We had run it as a headline days earlier, when one of his officials spoke of safe deposit boxes, wealth registers, an asset database and so on. In substance, he spent a whole day analysing wealth tax, what’s happening in Spain, the voluntary taxes on the wealthy in Britain and so forth. But in his case, the old saying applies, all talk and no substance, meaning we heard plenty of theories but no serious, concrete, well-documented measure that would actually bring money into the state budget. As we said, Alexis, if you want to find money, you know where it is.

Adonis and the ambassador

A small footnote from Adonis’s meeting the other day with Israel’s new ambassador to Athens, Pnina Yanai. “I’m nervous around you,” the ambassador told the minister. “Why me?” Adonis asked her, to which she replied, meaning it as thanks for his consistently pro-Israel stance, “I’m worried that one day they’ll pull me back from Jerusalem and tell me, don’t come back yet, because we have an ambassador in Athens called Adonis.” Charming!

Amal in Athens

Amal Alamuddin, George Clooney’s wife, has been in Athens since yesterday to take part tomorrow in UNESCO’s Annual Meeting of Goodwill Ambassadors. At 6:30pm, Goodwill Ambassador Konstantia Konstantakopoulou will speak with Amal at a closed event at the Pillars of Olympian Zeus, on the theme “Artificial Intelligence and Culture.” Taking the occasion of the event and Amal’s presence in Athens, the President of the Republic has invited her to the Presidential Mansion for a friendly conversation, which will presumably cover the legal developments of the past decade regarding the return of cultural treasures. It’s worth recalling that Tasoulas and Alamuddin worked together back in 2014, when the current President was Culture Minister and commissioned the law firm where Amal worked to produce a study on the terms for the return of the Marbles, which she delivered to him in person.

Dinner with Mareva

While I’m on the subject of UNESCO, I should mention that a select few have received invitations to a private dinner at 8:30pm at the Acropolis Museum, with Mareva Grabowski-Mitsotakis as the main speaker. The dinner is charitable in nature, aiming to boost UNESCO’s culture fund in support of the fight against the illegal trade in cultural heritage.

Goldman Sachs asks about takeovers of Greek banks

Delegations of analysts from foreign houses are parading through Athens these days, ahead of 21 September and the stock exchange’s return to developed market status. Goldman Sachs’s team visited the four systemic banks and the Ministry of National Economy, then sent clients a note. The picture they describe is one of a sustainable growth trajectory, with an investment gap fuelling strong corporate credit expansion and higher interest rates supporting revenues. Low penetration of banking, insurance and private banking products leaves plenty of room for growth across the board. Regarding next year’s elections, all the systemic banks’ managements said they felt comfortable with the full range of possible outcomes. Goldman Sachs had also visited Athens last March, six months ago. What’s new in today’s analysis is the prospect of mergers and acquisitions in the banking sector. The analysts placed a big question mark next to Eurobank’s name as a possible target or, alternatively, pointed to moves beyond Greece’s borders, with Bank of Cyprus in the frame. They generally showed strong interest in Eurobank, viewing it as having wide business diversification and a strong insurance arm. At Piraeus, the analysts focused on capital and efficiency, confirming the 30% cost-to-income target, possibly alongside higher revenues and higher costs than planned. National Bank presented the recent move in interest rates as broadly supportive, with no material change to its funding mix, aside from some shift towards term deposits. Alpha Bank locked in its next appointment at its Capital Markets Day in November, with ambitions to grow earnings per share faster than the market is pricing in, and analysts described it as “excessively cheap” at current levels. Their overall conclusion is that a position in Greece today is preferable to one in Spain.

Strong start for Star Bulk

According to sources, demand for Star Bulk shares has got off to a very strong start ahead of its listing on the Athens Stock Exchange. Strong investor interest is being recorded, fuelling optimism that the offering will exceed expectations.

N. Karamouzis’s three hundred pages

Nikolaos Karamouzis promised his own revelations about what has been going on for decades in the Greek market, closing his address at the Capital Market Commission’s Symposium. After noting that he had heard former chairs of the Commission reminiscing about the past, he pointed out that he himself is marking fifty years in the profession and has already written around three hundred pages of stories from his career. The material, he said, will be published posthumously, and he urged those who read it then to see what had been going on for decades. With half a century in banking, business and investment, it’s certain that Nikolaos Karamouzis has plenty to record.

Motor Oil: twenty-two meetings with fund managers

Yesterday at midday, Motor Oil’s deputy CEO Petros Tzannetakis set off for Paris and Kepler Cheuvreux’s Autumn Conference, with a marathon schedule of twenty-two meetings with fund managers on his agenda. It all began last year, at the same conference, on 12 September 2025. A year ago, Greek refiners didn’t have many fans among investment offices. Today, the same shares are offering triple-digit returns, and fund managers are queuing up, since it’s clear the market itself requested those twenty-two appointments. The work in Paris, though, is now harder than it was last year. Back then, management was presenting an undervalued growth story to a sceptical audience. This year, it has to convince investors that after a plus 101 per cent rise, there’s still more to come. Eight days before the 18 September rebalancing and the stock exchange’s official upgrade to developed market status, Greek blue chips are now travelling to European conferences with a different passport. This isn’t an emerging market recovery bet any more, but shares in a developed market claiming a permanent place in portfolios.

Polys’s wedge

It’s well known in the market that banks, when they take on joint underwriting mandates, tend to arrange things so that one deal doesn’t tread on another. It seems, though, that things have changed, and shipowners are bringing in new habits and practices. Which is why it raised eyebrows that Polys Hadjiioannou of Safe Bulk went to market with Piraeus Bank, DNB Carnegie and Fearnley Securities to raise 80.4 million euros on top of Star Bulk’s public offering, the company belonging to P. Pappas. It’s possible that relations between Hadjigiannou and Pappas aren’t exactly warm.

Sarantis eyes investments and acquisitions

Sarantis closed the first half of 2026 with modest sales growth, while keeping profitability resilient despite cost pressures. Sales rose by 1.3% to 308.3 million euros, with the second quarter relatively subdued and the positive contribution coming mainly from the Home Care Solutions and Strategic Partnerships categories. On the positive side, the balance sheet also improved, with net debt falling to 29.6 million euros, while committed credit lines of 120 million euros leave considerable room for new acquisitions. The gap between reported and adjusted figures relates solely to one one-off event, the sale of Polypack’s old, non-operational factory. The difference between the sale price and the property’s book value, after deducting brokerage fees and other related costs, came to 0.8 million euros. This one-off effect runs through every line of the income statement, from EBITDA down to net profit. It’s also worth noting that keeping the non-operational factory running had been costing the company nearly 0.5 million euros a year. Following its sale, that cost will disappear, with part of the benefit already reflected in the current financial year. Meanwhile, investment continues at Stella Pack and the Oinofyta plant, alongside Carroten’s international expansion and the group’s digital transformation. The picture, then, is more one of a year spent holding margins steady while preparing for the next phase of growth. Despite a weak second quarter, Sarantis is maintaining healthy profitability and strong financial flexibility, while the 25% increase in the 2025 dividend, to 0.39 euros per share, underlines management’s confidence in the medium-term outlook.

2026, a year of transition for Fourlis

2026 is shaping up as a transition year for the Fourlis group, as higher transformation costs weigh on profitability, with EBIT turning negative, at minus 1.6 million euros compared with plus 6 million euros previously. Profitability was hit by rising payroll, energy, transport and property costs, pressures in Romania, and planned costs linked to the launch of new activities, including Inter IKEA’s new distribution centre. On top of that, one-off charges of around 1.6 million euros were recorded from network rationalisation. Management told analysts that its voluntary redundancy programme had been completed, with 63 departures, while the day before yesterday, Tuesday, contracts were signed for Holland & Barrett with DrP Group. The focus now shifts to the benefits of the transformation. Centralising operations, the shared services platform and system upgrades are weighing on 2026, but management expects recurring annual savings of more than 9 million euros from 2027 onwards. At the same time, the sale of its stake in the Sofia South Ring Mall is expected to strengthen the balance sheet and add 9.3 million euros to pre-tax profit in 2026. On the positive side, commercial momentum remains strong, with sales up to early September running around 6% higher. So, as management told analysts, the key challenge for Fourlis is to get through this year’s restructuring costs while keeping sales growth going, so that from 2027 the savings and new investments start feeding through more substantially into profitability.

It’s not the billionaires who bring in the money, but their offices

Billionaires wanting to move their tax residence to Athens bring in relatively little revenue. Their offices, however, can give a significant boost to our state budget. Britain is losing its third-largest taxpayer, Chris Rokos, along with taxes worth £330 million, according to the Sunday Times. Shadow Chancellor Griffith calculated that it would take 38,000 average British taxpayers to make up for the tax Rokos would have paid. Greece, from that same relocation, would collect just €100,000 a year, the flat tax under the non-dom regime for foreign income, valid for up to fifteen years, on condition that €500,000 is invested in the country within three years. But there are also small, golden details. Greece’s first product is stability. The tax rate has remained unchanged since it was introduced, whereas rival Italy has already raised its own twice, to €300,000 a year. There’s also the clever institutional framework introduced last summer, providing for a 5% rate (instead of 15%) on bonuses and carried interest for fund executives, on condition that the company establishes a genuine presence, with operating expenses of at least €3 million a year in the country. In this way, hosting billionaires is turned into an industry. Revenue for the country comes from salaries, rents, services and social contributions. Izzy Englander’s Millennium, with staff across 140 different locations, is the first real test of this mechanism. Millennium is in talks with Greek authorities about opening an office in Athens, with portfolio manager Rahul Chopra among those considering the move, while Pierrakakis’s upcoming trip to London will include meetings with other financial figures. As a result, Greece is chasing a slice of a £400 billion pie under management in the United Kingdom, worth 40,000 jobs and £3.9 billion in tax revenue.

Rising with a few, falling with everyone

The Athens Stock Exchange is currently revolving around a single date, Friday 18 September. At the close of that session, the last one before the official upgrade to developed market status on 21 September, the mechanical allocations from passive funds will settle. Around €2 billion, spread across eight to ten large-cap, widely held stocks. The result is a two-speed market that’s no longer hiding. The General Index is offering a return of more than plus 25% since the start of the year, standing above 2,700 points for the first time since November 2009, with market capitalisation flirting with €200 billion. Yet at least 65 stocks on the board are in negative territory. Outside the basket tracked by the indices, buyers are simply absent, regardless of prospects, fundamentals or valuations. The market is rising with a few and falling with everyone else. Today, the refiners are keeping the sessions’ overall tally afloat. The question on everyone’s mind in every brokerage office is what the market has in store after the 18th. Once the mechanical buyer is exhausted, we’ll see whether real demand stands behind it.

HELLENiQ ENERGY unstoppable at a 27-year high

And since we were just talking about the refiners, back to HELLENiQ ENERGY’s frenzied rally. Yesterday’s share price jump of 6.3% completed an impressive four-day winning streak with cumulative gains of 13.6%, accompanied by intense activity. Trading volume topped one million shares, while turnover came in above €18 million, signalling aggressive repositioning by institutional portfolios. With an impressive plus 112% since the start of the year, the stock has more than doubled its market capitalisation, now approaching €5.4 billion. Yesterday’s close of €17.73 marks the highest price in twenty-seven years, bringing the share within touching distance of its all-time high of €18.87 (22 September 1999). Strong profitability, wider refining margins, the accelerating green transition and the successful execution of the strategic restructuring plan are all fuelling investor interest, putting the company on course to beat even its own historic record.

OTE: back above 20 euros, with an eye on 2008

OTE emerged as the quiet star of yesterday’s session. With daily gains of 2.1%, the stock broke through the psychological barrier of €20 for the first time since early August, closing at €20.12. The stock is now eyeing this year’s high of €20.40 once again. Breaking above that level would open the way to prices the company hasn’t seen in eighteen years, taking the board back to the peaks of May 2008.

Athens sounds the alarm over fears of a two-tier shipping industry

Greece and the other countries of the Consultative Shipping Group have sent an unusually strict warning about what is now happening at sea worldwide. The message is that the basic principles on which global shipping has relied for decades, free navigation, equal terms of competition and commonly accepted international rules, are coming under growing pressure from geopolitical conflicts, sanctions and restrictions on maritime transport. And this is where the interesting backstory begins. Those in the know see it as more than just another diplomatic statement, because layered onto an already explosive geopolitical backdrop is the huge expansion of the shadow fleet, which now numbers more than 1,500 tankers. In simple terms, a two-speed shipping industry is gradually taking shape, or, as shipping executives put it at a conference in New York last year, a kind of parallel universe. On one side are the organised companies paying for insurance, classification, environmental compliance and financing. On the other, a parallel fleet is growing that operates in the grey zones of sanctions and often outside traditional Western oversight structures. This is exactly what worries Athens, not only because the risk of accidents rises, but because the terms of competition are starting to become distorted. And in Greek shipping circles, the question is now being framed differently, namely who will ultimately enforce the rules, and on whom, if the shadow fleet keeps growing.

Brent at $120 and the war premium passing on to ships

Goldman Sachs’s forecast that Brent could spike to $120 a barrel if attacks on commercial vessels escalate matters more than the number itself, because it shows where the big investment houses are now spotting the real risk: at sea. Until now, the discussion mostly revolved around how many barrels might be lost from the market. But the equation changes when the problem shifts to the sea lanes. Production doesn’t need to stop for a shock to hit. It’s enough for transport to become harder, more expensive and more dangerous. Shipping is now entering the bigger picture. More attacks mean higher war-risk insurance premiums, pricier freight rates, longer routes and, above all, shipowners demanding much higher payment to send their vessels into high-risk zones. For Greek shipowners, with their huge presence in tankers, controlling 33% of the world’s tanker tonnage in this segment, the situation cuts both ways. Freight rates can soar, but operational risk soars right along with them. That’s why Goldman’s $120 figure isn’t simply an oil forecast. It’s a warning that if the geopolitical conflict finally tips over into a war on shipping itself, then the market’s biggest premium won’t sit on the barrel. It will sit on the deck of the ship carrying it.

The big Greek cash-out, who’s selling and why

There’s a lot of talk about the billions Greek shipowners are pouring into newbuildings. But look at the other side of the coin, and you’ll see an equally big game under way. Greek shipowners are taking advantage of high valuations in the secondhand market to lock in gains and recycle capital. The trend is particularly strong in tankers. The top five Greek sellers of 2026 have completed deals worth a combined total of around $1.61 billion. At the top is Kriton Lendoudis’s Evalend Shipping, with $451.49 million, followed by Evangelos Pistiolis’s TOP Ships, with $413.72 million, Leon Patitsas’s Atlas Maritime, with $307.36 million, Nikolas Tsakos’s TEN, with $227.35 million, and Dynacom Tankers, with $213.1 million. A string of deals shows the secondhand market is on fire. TEN secured more than $100 million for two 2006-built Suezmaxes, while Olympic Shipping fetched around $115 million for the fifteen-year-old VLCC Olympic Leopard. Diamantis Diamantidis’s Delta Tankers achieved similarly high figures with the Delta Angelica, at around $116 million, as did Nikolas Martinos’s Thenamaris with the Seapassion, at around $125 million. Andreas Hadjigiannis’s Hellenic Tankers has also locked in significant gains, on ships acquired at markedly lower prices. The trend isn’t limited to tankers. In bulk carriers, Angeliki Frangou’s Navios Maritime Partners parted with the seventeen-year-old Capesize Navios Pollux for around $30.75 million, while Panos Laskaridis’s Lavinia Bulkers sold the Erato. The two deals together came to $68.75 million, amid strong freight rates and elevated valuations for large bulkers. The bigger picture is even more revealing. Over the trailing twelve months, Greek interests have sold 316 secondhand ships while acquiring 229, and remain extremely active at the shipyards too. This amounts to a major rotation of the Greek-owned fleet. Older vessels, or assets whose valuations have soared, are being converted into cash, which can then be used to pay down debt, or fund newer secondhand tonnage or newbuildings.

After the rally, a stabilisation phase for Bitcoin

Bitcoin appears to have hit the brakes, for now, on the sharp swings of recent days, and is trading in a zone of balance just below the psychological threshold of $80,000. After its recent upward surge, the market seems to be catching its breath, with investors weighing their next moves. What’s interesting is that this time there’s no sign of panic or a mass exodus. It looks more like a phase in which buyers and sellers are testing each other’s resolve, waiting for the next signals from the international environment. The $80,000 area has become something of a small battleground for the cryptocurrency, as markets try to work out whether it can turn into a stable base. Behind the scenes, the usual suspects remain, namely interest rates, inflation and the Federal Reserve. Expectations about the direction of US monetary policy continue to weigh on high-risk assets, and bitcoin is no exception. The other notable point is that the market no longer seems to be simply chasing a quick move. Investors are looking more closely at whether there’s a foundation for a fresh upward push, following the strong recovery of recent weeks. The question isn’t just whether bitcoin can touch higher levels again, but whether it can stay there without another burst of volatility. In short, bitcoin is testing its maturity. There was a time when a move of a few thousand dollars would cause turmoil. Now, the market looks more like a traditional stock market asset, where participants wait for the data before taking a position.

Uproar over data centres in the US

More than ten US states, including Illinois, New Jersey and Washington, are suspending or scrapping tax breaks for AI data centres, as backlash grows over their electricity and water consumption. In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine has suspended sales tax exemption applications since May. In 2025, the relevant tax breaks exceeded $1.5 billion, more than ten times the original estimates. Lawmakers are now calling for these deals to be renegotiated and for companies to shoulder more of the cost of energy infrastructure. The public backlash is also taking on political dimensions. New York has imposed an annual moratorium on licensing new hyperscale data centres in order to put together a stricter regulatory framework. The industry warns that investment could shift to states with more favourable tax regimes. Despite the backlash, investment remains strong, with data centre construction spending in the US hitting a record $75 billion between January and July, up 57% year on year.

A nuclear IPO on the Nasdaq

The next artificial intelligence company to go public isn’t building microprocessors or software, but nuclear equipment. Holtec Nuclear is expected to list on the Nasdaq on 18 September 2026, with a price range of $15 to $18 per share and a valuation that could reach $10.2 billion. The investment case rests on the growing energy needs of data centres. The International Energy Agency estimates that global electricity consumption by data centres will roughly double between 2025 and 2030. Nuclear power is thus making a comeback, thanks to its ability to deliver stable, round-the-clock output. Holtec already has operations in manufacturing nuclear components, managing spent fuel and decommissioning facilities. At the same time, it’s working to restart the 800 MW Palisades nuclear plant and developing its own small modular reactor. Nuclear investments, however, carry a different risk profile. Constellation Energy already has operating plants, Cameco combines uranium production with a stake in Westinghouse, while companies such as Oklo depend on reactors that haven’t yet been built. The biggest challenge remains cost. The Vogtle reactors in the US cost around $15,000 per kW, compared with around $4,400 per kW for Barakah in the United Arab Emirates. Holtec is targeting $7,500 to $8,500 per kW for future SMR projects. Demand for electricity is a given for this kind of investment, but project execution will determine who ultimately benefits.

When Trump talks about 20% growth

“We could have GDP growth of plus 14%, plus 15, plus 16 and plus 20%,” said Donald Trump from the Oval Office, at an event on drug pricing. He was quick to add that success in growth doesn’t cause inflation. CNBC’s journalists did the obvious thing. They dug into the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s archives and found that, since 1947, an annualised growth rate of plus 20% or higher has only ever been recorded in a single quarter, the third quarter of 2020, at plus 34.9%, when the US economy was bouncing back from lockdowns, after the previous quarter had contracted at a rate of minus 28%. The second-best performance in post-war history belongs to the first quarter of 1950, at plus 16.7%, shortly before the outbreak of the Korean War. Back to the present, the US economy grew at an annualised rate of plus 1.5% in the second quarter of 2026. The bar the president is describing is thirteen times higher. Trump held up the prospect of explosive growth as an argument for cutting dollar interest rates, just as the Fed kept its policy rate at 3.5% to 3.75% in July, with three central bank officials dissenting in favour of a hike. A large part of the market expects the Fed to raise rates at its September meeting, with inflation still running steadily above its 2% target. In other words, the lowest interest rates in the world are being demanded at precisely the moment the market is pricing in the opposite. History, then, has recorded only one recipe for plus 20% growth. It has to be preceded by a minus 28% plunge.