CABLE: Yesterday’s announcement by the Turkish Ministry of Defense about the Great Sea Interconnector cable dangerously raises the temperature in Greek-Turkish relations.
Greece has said not once, but many times lately, with abundant courage, that the surveys for the future laying of the cable will begin “soon,” following the agreement with the French of Meridiam.
A few days ago, in fact, reports by the usually reliable “Kathimerini” were also denied that the route of the cable might somehow change (and therefore the survey areas as well), so that any Turkish… claims would not be affected.
Yesterday’s announcement by the Turks, however, leaves no room for doubt. The message is clear: “if you want to conduct surveys for this specific project, you will have to obtain our permission.”
Our government appears determined, and they appear determined as well. For the time being, of course, we are talking about a “bras de fer” in… words, which generally in our wider region, the... hot-blooded and swaggering one, enjoys great popularity.
If, however, we assume that neither of the two is bluffing, expecting the other to back down (a common phenomenon, truth be told), then sooner or later we will have the real thing as well.
On the ground.
CABLE II: Meanwhile, a new intra-party front has emerged over the issue.
This time the… headache came from professor and Athens A MP Angelos Syrigos, who (on ERTnews) acknowledged that in Kasos and in the attempt to lay the electricity interconnection cable in 2024, our country backed down -indeed twice- in the face of Turkey, dismantling the government narrative.
The government spokesperson was asked to comment and chose to “throw Mr. Syrigos under the bus,” attributing his statement to his… academic capacity!
“On the substance of the matter, these are not assessments, there was no retreat. These statements in reality constitute Mr. Syrigos’ personal assessments, without taking into account certain real data.
First, the initial phase of execution of the project in Kasos was carried out based on the scheduling submitted by the contractor company and was completed normally.
Second, issues did arise, but these had to do with the technical and financial viability of the project and there was a reassessment of the financial data.
Third, a reliable investor with extensive experience in similar projects was sought in order to strengthen the project technically and financially”.
Mr. Syrigos’ view, as was natural, provoked the reaction of the opposition, at a time when Ankara is once again raising the tone.
A difficult equation…
STYLIANIDES: According to the popular proverb, a rose may come from a thorn and a thorn may come from a rose, but within ND the situation is not exactly like that.
“Just as in a garden there are thorns and flowers, in a large political camp there are some who are one way and some who are another”, argued Evripidis Stylianides.
And although Kyriakos Mitsotakis made it clear that it is his responsibility to assess individual behaviors, the former minister did not avoid answering -carefully, however- the relevant question.
In an interview (on ACTION 24), he described Dora Bakoyannis’ remark that arrogant behaviors must be isolated as “correct” and explained that there are isolated behaviors, not only by ministers, but also by administrative executives and heads of organizations, etc., that do not project the best possible image.
FLORIDIS: Giorgos Floridis insists on the theory of… rubble about the covering-up with rubble at Tempi.
“I would not change anything… My phrase was about the politicians. That within this murky landscape, those who use the word covering-up with rubble are fit for the rubble heap… The conspirators are asking me, who contributed to exposing the conspiracy, to resign, and not for them to apologize for this whole conspiracy”, the Justice Minister said in his familiar style (on SKAI).
He also spoke of a “political conspiracy” and argued that the confrontation surrounding the Tempi case was based on theories that, as he said, proved false and resulted in creating in society the belief that there had been a cover-up.
And all this, just one day after the referral of Triantopoulos to the Special Court over the… rubble covering.
IT: The paradoxes in public tenders are endless, as emerges from what was revealed by Dimitris Dafnis, chairman and CEO of the Cosmos Group, at a meeting he had with journalists.
Characteristic is the case of a tender by a large and well-known public-sector body, as he described it. According to him, the evaluation committee stated in writing in the minutes “insufficient knowledge of the field of expertise” it was called upon to examine and ultimately assigned it to an external associate.
In another case, in a tender worth 6 million euros for a technology project, one of the two contractors is Cosmos, while the second is a company whose business is... landscaping. In fact, as Mr. Dafnis characteristically commented, at first he thought he had heard the company name wrong when he heard it, but in the end it really was a landscaping company that sells... rakes.
At the other extreme, in a local government tender for a cybersecurity project, with a budget of just 60,000 euros, the requirements for the project team covered, according to Mr. Dafnis, five pages. The team leader was required, among other things, to hold a doctorate and an undergraduate degree in IT and, as he himself commented ironically, roughly “to have developed solutions for the NASA that went to the moon”.
The scale of the requirements becomes even more impressive, as he pointed out, if compared with much larger projects. He even cited as an example a 50 million euro project of the Ministry of Justice that is under consultation.
“What should be requested there? Should we bring Bill Gates together with Elon Musk onto the project team?”, he wondered.
TMEDE: We had a recall to arms of the old guard at TMEDE Microcredits. In the height of summer (i.e. on August 5) the company’s board of directors elected Stylianos Pirpinias (former chairman of Pankritia and head of Retail Banking, Wealth Management & Marketing, Private Banking HSBC Greece) as its new member.
Subsequently, the board was reconstituted with Mr. Pirpinias assuming the duties of chief executive officer. The company’s then CEO, Maria Eleni Bouzoura, resigned and departed.
MERMEREN: The listed company has been developing photovoltaic parks since 2024, with the first, in Seltse, having been put into operation during the first half of this year. The remaining three in Kumanovo, Staro Lagovo and Vavadartsi are under construction.
NN HELLAS: The insurer will distribute a dividend of 61.5 million euros from the profits of fiscal year 2025 to its Dutch parent, while last year it distributed 64 million euros. The insurer closed fiscal year 2025 with profit after tax of 65.6 million euros and total comprehensive income for the year after tax of 54.6 million euros.
The result from insurance and reinsurance activities amounted to a profit of 92.7 million euros while investment income came to just 12.8 million euros.
TECHNIKI OLYMPIAKI: Although revenue from ship chartering fell to 5.9 million euros (first half 2025: 7.77 million euros) and property sales amounted to 4.37 million euros (first half 2025: 3.6 million euros), shipping continues to finance the other activities as it contributed 3.86 million euros to consolidated operating results and 5.6 million euros to group EBITDA, while real estate contributed 470 thousand euros and Samos Marinas 323 thousand euros (i.e. the remaining activities were loss-making).
Consolidated EBITDA from continuing operations amounted to 4.88 million euros.
The group maintains cash reserves of 64.2 million euros, which did increase during the half-year period, but as a result of increased borrowing.
ILEKTOR-THALIS: ILEKTOR and Thalis, companies in the circular economy sector of the Motor Oil group, a majority stake in which (i.e. 75%) is to be sold to Aktor, had a combined backlog of 578 million euros on 31/12/2025.
Thalis closed last year with EBITDA of 9.5 million euros and ILEKTOR with published EBITDA of 31.35 million euros. If, however, non-recurring income of 7.2 million euros from the sale of Aeiforiki Dodekanisou is excluded, ILEKTOR’s (adjusted) EBITDA for 2025 comes to 24.21 million euros and the total to 33.7 million euros.
Thalis and ILEKTOR had, in aggregate, at the end of 2025, net cash of 60.8 million euros, while last year they generated cash flows of 34.6 million euros from operating activities.
The MOH-Aktor agreement provides that the transaction will be carried out at an Enterprise Value of 300 million euros. Based on last year’s EBITDA, the transaction will be carried out at EV/EBITDA 8.9x.
The net cash will either be collected by Motor Oil, before the sale, or it will increase the price of 225 million euros. Based on the estimated EBITDA for this year (i.e. around 50 million euros) EV/EBITDA comes to 6x.
FRANGOU: The need for shipowners to maintain financial strength and operational flexibility, regardless of the course of the freight market, was underlined by Angeliki Frangou, speaking at Capital Link’s 18th New York Maritime Forum.
The head of Navios Maritime Partners described current conditions in the freight markets as exceptionally strong, while warning, however, that they cannot last indefinitely. As she said, geopolitical conflicts that lengthen trade routes, protectionism, investments in infrastructure due to AI and defense spending, and technological progress in shipping support demand.
However, those same factors may change, affecting global growth and energy demand.
“Our job is not to predict changes, but to maintain financial strength and operational flexibility”, she stressed, so that shipping companies can prosper whether conditions remain favorable or not.
STOCK MARKET: Part of yesterday’s violent drop on the ASE had purely technical characteristics, with the following two factors playing an important role: first, during the last September sessions and especially on Wednesday (end of month and nine-month period), there was the… tail end of the FTSE and STOXX index rebalancing, second, yesterday, the first session of the new month, there were rebalancing moves in portfolios.
It is a common practice for passive funds with small assets under management to leave part or even all of the adjustments accompanying an index review for the last sessions of the month in which it was carried out (i.e. the restructuring).
This year, things were more intense as the rebalancing was accompanied by a reclassification of the market into developed markets.
The above peculiarity sustained trading activity in systemic banks and other stocks (DAA, OLP, Optima), culminating in Wednesday’s session.
Those purchases were absent yesterday, while at the same time “baskets” of sales were activated as well as individual sales in stocks that outperformed in September.
As a result, the stocks of the systemic banks and most blue chips recorded significant losses. By contrast, those stocks that had been pressured in September (Allwyn, Jumbo) moved slightly upward.