Piraeus Bank prices equity offering at 1.15 euros per share

ATHENS (Reuters) -Piraeus Bank, one of Greece's four big lenders, has priced its stock offering at 1.15 euros per share, at the upper limit of an indicated range, raising 1.38 billion euros ($1.66 billion), it said on Friday.

The announcement confirmed what sources close to the transaction had told Reuters earlier on Friday.

The bank said the offering was oversubscribed multiple times.

"This capital raise will enable Piraeus Bank to pursue its ultimate target for a definitive balance sheet clean-up in the next 12 months," Chief Executive Officer Christos Megalou said in a statement.

Piraeus Bank launched the equity offering to raise between 1.2 billion and 1.38 billion euros via a placement with international investors and a domestic public offering.

The bank will issue 1.2 billion new shares and will allocate 85% to the international placement and the remaining 15% to the domestic public offering.

Greece's rescue fund for banks, the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF), which owns 61.3% of Piraeus, said that the offering will help Piraeus grow its profit to support Greek economy's recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Goldman Sachs and UBS were joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners with BNP Paribas, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Ambrosia Capital, AXIA, Euroxx Securities and Piraeus Securities.

($1 = 0.8288 euros)

(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos and Angeliki Koutantou; Editing by Edmund Blair and David Gregorio)