The Athens Stock Exchange is already within a whisker of its highest annual figure in a decade, having reached that level in the first nine months of 2026. The figure confirms the significant momentum in companies’ use of capital markets for financing.
The total value of capital raisings and other recorded capital transactions from January to September stood at €8.04bn, compared with €2.53bn for the whole of 2025.
Remarkably, the total for the first nine months of this year is just €49m short of the €8.09bn recorded in 2021, the highest annual figure from 2016 to date.
The trend becomes even more striking when viewed against previous years. After peaking in 2021, activity fell before recovering for three consecutive years, ahead of a sharp acceleration in 2026.
The journey from 2016 to today
Capital transactions over the past decade reflect the significant changes in Greece’s capital market.
Their total value was just €206m in 2016, before rising to €965m in 2017. It then fell to €450m in 2018, before returning to more than €1bn in 2019 and 2020, at €1.3bn and €1.39bn respectively.
The biggest change came in 2021, when the total value surged to €8.09bn across 31 recorded transactions. That year was unusual, as a significant part of the activity was linked to transactions by the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund and domestic banks.
In particular, the conversion of Piraeus’ CoCo convertible bonds into shares led to a €2.366bn increase in share capital, with the HFSF’s stake rising from 26.4% to 61.3%. This was a capital conversion, not an inflow of new cash.
That same year, Piraeus carried out a new capital increase of €1.38bn, while Alpha Bank raised €800m. The HFSF took part in both. PPC also carried out a significant €1.35bn capital increase.
These transactions go a long way towards explaining why 2021 was a landmark year for financing activity on the Athens Stock Exchange.
Activity was considerably more subdued in the years that followed. In 2022, the total fell to €1.16bn, before gradually recovering to €1.74bn in 2023, €2.2bn in 2024 and €2.53bn in 2025.
Over the three years from 2023 to 2025, the total value rose by about 45% and more than doubled compared with 2022. Activity had therefore begun to pick up before this year.
What capital raisings include
The figures cover more than traditional share capital increases. They also include private placements (placements), corporate bond issues by listed and unlisted companies, public offerings linked to new listings, conversions of bonds into shares and dividend reinvestments.
This distinction matters because not every transaction represents new capital entering companies’ coffers. A bond issue, for example, may finance investment or refinance existing debt, while a bond conversion changes a company’s capital structure without bringing in new cash.
Private placements and public offerings may involve either new shares or existing securities transferred to investors.
The leading players of 2026
Significant financing from companies across several sectors contributed to this year’s performance, with energy, infrastructure, construction and banking all strongly represented.
Among the largest transactions was PPC’s €4.25bn capital increase, followed by GEK TERNA with €659.3m, AKTOR with €650m and IPTO Holdings with €530m.
Lamda Development also featured prominently, with a €350m bond issue, alongside CrediaBank with €300m and ElvalHalcor with €250m.
In total, 33 transactions and capital movements were recorded in the first nine months, compared with 38 for the whole of 2025 and 23 in 2024. The increase in total value has therefore far outstripped the change in the number of transactions.
This year’s activity follows a period in which the Greek market had already seen major corporate transactions, including the Athens International Airport public offering in 2024, capital injections into banks and large corporate bond issues.
The stock market rally and what comes next
The strong momentum in corporate financing coincides with a particularly positive period for the stock market.
The General Index ended the first nine months at 2,738.35 points, up 29.12% since the start of the year, after gaining 44.3% in 2025.
Trading activity had also risen significantly in the previous year. Total trading value reached €54.3bn in 2025, up 57.4% from 2024, while average daily trading value stood at €218.8m.
These figures add to the picture of a recovering Greek capital market, where increased trading and rising share valuations have been accompanied by greater activity in financing and capital transactions.
The improvement is even clearer when compared with the recent past. Over the three years from 2023 to 2025, the total value of recorded transactions reached €6.47bn, a figure already surpassed in the first nine months of 2026.
The gap widens further when the comparison is extended to the five years from 2016 to 2020, when the equivalent total was €4.31bn. This year’s figure is already approaching twice that amount, reflecting the greater scale of financing and transactions now taking place through the Athens Stock Exchange.