Self evidently the first investment in my investment project is going to be in Greece, the country where fiscal responsibility was never an issue, politicians were elected based on how many iron clad government jobs they were willing to dish out to supporters and tax evasion is the national sport, oh yes and retirement in the 50ies.
My investment has to be in a country where contempt for moderation walks hand in hand with nepotism and denial of realities to the extend where the people that pay for saving the country will be assailed for having the audacity to expect any austerity measures.
But which investment to make? My initial thought was government bonds, any bond that yields 30% will pass the granny test, but then I came acros Alpha Bank, ripe with scandals, owned by one wealthy family with ties to the conservative government of Georgios Papandreou. Furthermore Alpha bank does business in Albania, Romania and Cyprus, not exactly hallmarks of sound financial policies.
Alpha Bank has fallen back from over 30€ before the crisis to 0,7€ today, seems like a steal.
But why do I then think this stock will be golden in the future, well for the simple reason that Greek banks are as close to free as you can get. The Greek banks owns almost the entire Greek customer base as no other banks are willing to enter this market, so once this happy go lucky nation bounces back from all the German euros pumped into the country the value share of the Greek customers that comes with the market share will increase tremendously.
Greek consumer worth has only gone back 30% while Greek bank stock has been almost decimated, so while the bank is not worth much its customer base is worth quite a bit still. I speculate that a share in the Greek bank sector is for sale cheap at the moment.
What about risk, well it is significant of course, but the cost of letting Greece fall now after all the chips have been put on the table makes me bet that no one in Berlin will let that happen.
All said and done I have bought shares in Alpha Bank (ACB:GR) at 0,695€ and I am looking forward to seeing how that will work out.
