Athens News Agency: News in English, 01-08-23

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Foreign exchange rates - Friday

[02] Delta gets control of Goody's in oversold public offer

[03] Cretan hotels group to invest Dr 50 bln in expansion plan

[04] Greece - Cyprus - Satellites

[05] Weather Forecast: Changeable on Friday

[06] Greek stocks continue moving sideways

[01] Foreign exchange rates - Friday

Indicative buying rates

U.S. dollar 370.985

German mark 172.829

French franc 051.531

Pound sterling 536.031

Irish punt 429.202

Belgian franc 008.379

Luxembourg franc 008.379

Dutch guilder 153.389

Italian lira (100) 017.457

Austrian schilling 024.565

Danish kroner 45.389

Swedish kroner 35.868

Finnish mark 056.852

Spanish peseta 002.032

Portuguese escudo 001.686

Japanese yen (100) 308.287

Swiss franc 222.465

Norwegian kroner 041.669

Cyprus pound 589.614

Canadian dollar 240.218

Australian dollar 197.467

[02] Delta gets control of Goody's in oversold public offer

Delta Holding SA on Thursday acquired a controlling 60 percent stake in Goody's SA, a popular fast food chain, in a friendly takeover accomplished through a public offer. Both firms are quoted on the Athens Stock Exchange.

Blue-chip Delta, which said in a statement that it aimed to boost Goody's share price, had accepted terms set by Goody's management for conditional approval of its takeover through the July 25-August 23 offer, which was oversubscribed.

The terms included retention of manangement control by Goody's until at least June 30, 2003, in order to implement a growth plan; and a maintenance of ties with franchisees.

The acquisition will lead to creation of a domestic foodstuffs giant with operations at home and in southeastern Europe - where Delta already is active - totalling 80,000 outlets, 11 production units, more than 5,000 staff, and a customer base of 50 million inhabitants.

The new group, which is to claim a stake in markets worth around 2.0 trillion drachmas, expects to see turnover in 2001 of more than 600 million euros, the statement said.

Delta Holding, which includes Delta Dairy, offered 18.50 euros in cash per share, applying to all stockholders.

The offer had a floor of 4,003,582 stocks and ceiling of 5,631,631 shares, with the latter representing 34.5 percent of Goody's. Delta already owned 25.4 percent of the fast food chain.

The ceiling in the offer was the overall acquisition of 60 percent of stock and the floor was for 50 percent plus one share, both including the existing stake.

The offer was managed by Alpha Bank.

[03] Cretan hotels group to invest Dr 50 bln in expansion plan

The Mandonanakis hotels group of Crete is to invest more than 50 billion drachmas over the next four years in a plan to modernise and expand its business, it said in a statement on Thursday.

In addition, the group has forged an alliance with Hermes SA, an engineering contractor in the GEK Group, to build a luxury homes development on a stretch of coastline in Elounda, Crete, for sale to buyers from home and abroad, the statement said.

[04] Greece - Cyprus - Satellites

An agreement for the launching of the first Greek- and Cypriot-owned satellites (Hellas-Sat) was concluded on Thursday between the two countries' transport ministries.

Hellas-Sats two satellites will be jointly owned by Athens and Nicosia, with the first set to be launched on Aug. 31, 2002 and the second on March 31, 2004. Their geostatic orbit will be fixed at 39 degrees east. Hellas-Sats ?footprint? is expected to cover some 28 countries and a total population of 400 million people.

Hellas-Sat is comprised of the companies Avacom Net (33.4%), based in Cyprus, Greeces telephone utility OTE with 25 percent, Cyprus development bank with 19.6 percent, the Hellenic Aerospace Industries (HAI) with 10 percent and Telesat with 2 percent.

The first satellite will be constructed by Boeings Sat Systems division and launched from the European Space Agency Station at Kourou, in French Guiana.

[05] Weather Forecast: Changeable on Friday

Changeable weather is forecast in most parts of the country on Friday, except the southeast, which will mostly see sunshine. The rest of the country can expect scattered cloud intermittently turning to showers or storms, mainly from late afternoon on the mainland. Winds northerly, light to moderate, turning strong in the Aegean. On the northern mainland, temperatures will range from 16C to 30C; on the rest of the mainland from 18C to 33C; and in the islands from 22C to 31C. Unsettled in Athens, with temperatures between 22C and 33C. Same in Thessaloniki, with temperatures from 19C to 30C.

[06] Greek stocks continue moving sideways

Equity prices remained trapped moving within narrow ranges for one more session on the Athens Stock Exchange on Thursday, undermined by lack of fresh incentives and a shrinking liquidity.

Traders said the Greek market would continue finding resistance at the 2,700 level and support at the 2,650 level in the short-term.

Trading activity focused in the smaller capitalisation sector leaving the banks and telecommunications sectors accounting for only 12.01 percent of the day's turnover.

The general index ended 0.22 percent higher at 2,696.98 points, off the day's highs of 2,702.48 points. Turnover was an improved 122.74 million euros, or 41.83 billion drachmas.

The FTSE/ASE 20 index for smaller capitalisation stocks ended at 1,496.01 points, up 0.17 percent, the FTSE/ASE 40 index rose 0.54 percent to close at 312.56 points, and the FTSE/ASE SMALLCAP 80 index ended at 907.97 points, up 0.90 percent.

The parallel market index for smaller capitalisation stocks ended at 268.05 points, up 0.71 percent.

Broadly, advancers led decliners by 243 to 70 with another 48 issues unchanged.

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