ATEbank announces that the Annual Ordinary General Meeting of its Shareholders was held today. Following the submission of the Board of Directors' and the Auditors' Reports, the Bank's General Meeting approved the annual financial statements for the year 2005, as prepared and published by the Bank's Board of Directors. The Governor of ATEbank, Mr. Dimitrios Miliakos, spoke about the Bank's and the Group's performance in 2005 and the major initiatives that took place, focusing on the following issues:
1. The efforts of the management to complete the financial and operational restructuring to improve the Bank's and the Group's competitiveness, to control costs, to increase revenues, and to improve asset management.
2. The improvement of all financial ratios through organic growth. The financial results of 2005, both at Bank and the Group level, are characterised by increased profitability (profits after tax of euro 145.2m compared to losses of euro 70.9m in 2004), robust capital adequacy (Tier 1 capital ratio of 13%) and significant expansion in the retail-banking sector (increase of 30.7% compared to 2004).
3. The substantial strengthening of provisions by euro 496million, which improved the coverage ratio to 87.5%.
4. The successful completion of a euro 1.25 billion capital increase by way of rights issue which restored the capital adequacy at the Group and Bank level.
5. The successful loan restructuring under the "Panotokia Law", in which 63,320 debtors were benefited and tοtal write-offs amounted to euro 1,8 billion.
6. The ability of the Bank to continue to fund its loan expansion at low cost (cost of funding at 1.25% in 2005) despite the interest rate increases by the ECB. Furthermore, ATEbank has tried to keep competitive rates in various categories of loans despite the ECB rate increases in order to satisfy its customers.
7. The settlement of its pension funds reform, which will lead to substantial annual cost savings.
8. The improvement of the competitiveness and the strengthening of the image of the Bank, through the modernisation of its operating structure, its branch network, its IT infrastructure and the improved human resources management systems.
9. The performance of the stock of ATEbank which during 2005 showed an increase of 49,4% and has been included in the FTSE/Athex 20 Index, proving this way the trust and the interest of the investors for the Group.

The General Meeting, following the Board of Directors proposal, approved the distribution of a dividend of Euro 0.07 per share and a capital return of euro 0.05 per share.