End of the Line for National Bank of Greece ADR

Posted by on

National Bank of Greece has announced the termination of its ADR program. The bank’s ADR used to trade on the NYSE under the ticker NBG and crashed hard during the soverign debt crisis and implemented 3 reverse stock splits. Then when that did not work the bank started trading on the OTC market from Dec, 2015 under the ticker NBGGY.

Finally the bank decided to shut down its ADR program altogether and issued the following termination notice to holders yesterday:

NBG will today instruct the Depositary to terminate the Agreement and NBG expects that the Depositary will provide notice of termination to holders of ADRs shortly in accordance with the terms of the Agreement. NBG expects that the termination of the Agreement will become effective on or about March 15, 2018 (the “Termination Date”). Holders may surrender their ADRs to the Depositary for cancellation in exchange for the delivery of the underlying ordinary shares of NBG. NBG and the Depositary further intend to enter into an amendment to the Agreement, to become effective on the Termination Date, to shorten the period during which the Depositary may sell any shares underlying ADRs that have not been surrendered following the termination of the Agreement from one year to any time following such termination, as set out in a notice to owners of ADRs from the Depositary. Accordingly, at any time after the Termination Date, the Depositary may sell any shares underlying ADRs that have not been surrendered and may hold the uninvested net proceeds from of any such sale for the pro rata benefit of the holders of any such outstanding ADRs.

The termination notice can be found at the BNY Mellon Depository site here.

Today NBGGY closed at $0.258 a share and the bank had a market cap of $2.4 billion.

What can you do if you are holding NBGGY?

The best option is to sell out on the open market now and move on. On March 15th of next year the ADR program will terminate and trading of NBGGY will end. So better to sell asap and take the loss if you are in the red. I do not think exchanging to ordinary shares on the domestic market is worth it for this bank. Besides the depository may not offer this option.

Anyway after years of maintain the listing on the US markets National Bank of Greece has reached the end of the line RIP NBG!.

**** Update 4/25/18: Please visit this post for updated information: National Bank of Greece S.A: ADR Termination and Cash Distribution

Disclosure: No Positions

Petroleum in Brazil: Infographic

Posted by on

Petróleo Brasileiro S.A.  or simply called as Petrobras(PBR) is the state-owned Brazilian oil company. Petrobras used to a high-flier with the ADR hitting over $70 a share in 2008. Since then it has been gone nowhere but down year after year. The massive corruption scandal that was uncovered and falling oil prices have led this former crown jewel of Brazil to such a low level that the ADR closed at $10.71 on Friday. The share reached single digits before a massive run. It will be years or even decades for PBR to reach the $70 level.

Anyway the infographic below shows the Petroluem industry in Brazil:

Click to enlarge

 

Source: Wilson Center

Disclosure: Long PBR

Monthly Returns for MSCI AC World Index since 1988: Chart

Posted by on

Global stocks have yielded a positive return every month this year as measured by the MSCI AC World Index . The chart below shows the monthly returns of the index since 1988.

Click to enlarge

2017’s uninterrupted and unprecedented streak of monthly gains for global stocks

 

Source: 5 Reasons Investors Should Give Thanks by JEFFREY KLEINTOP, Schwab, Nov 13, 2017