αντιο κοκα κολα!

Translated as, "Goodbye Coca Cola", this post is in reference to an article I saw on Bloomberg News. As a Classics Major, and a Hellenist at that, I am always interested in what I see regarding Greece. I was lucky enough to visit for 2 weeks in 2008 on a school trip and fell in love with not only the language and culture, but now also the land, people and everything else about the country.

The article is all about the enormous affect that one MNC can have on a country's market. The Coca Cola Hellenic Bottling Co. is leaving the Athens stock exchange for London next year, and is projected to shrink the total market cap of Greece's stocks by a little over $8 billion dollars (from 39.2 to 31 billion). Coca Cola HBC happens to be the largest company in Greece in terms of market value, and managing director of Attica Wealth Management in Athens goes so far as to say the loss of just this one company on the Athens Stock Exchange is likely to make Greece resemble a developing country economically. Shockingly enough, Coca Cola HBC operates in almost 30 countries and does 95% of its business outside of Greece.

The company cites its decision to move as a result of downgrades from both S&P and Moody's, both of which were based on concern about the Greek economy and the surrounding crisis. They are going to list on the London Stock Exchange and are relocating to Switzerland due to both "economic and regulative stability", and to benefit their shareholders and make borrowing easier.

With the absence of this company, the National Bank of Greece will return to its position as largest stock on the ASE (Athens Stock Exchange). The Greek government will have to work hard to keep other companies on the ASE. This single company switch alone put the Greek market below the market value of Vietnam.

I'm personally not sure the significance of the value of Vietnam as a benchmark, but think that a percentage may have been a more effective measurement tool. Although this is what made the headlines, this was possibly the least shocking part of the whole article. At this point, in 2012, I did not expect Greece to be far above Vietnam so am wondering if they specifically found a random country's value and just said "yep, this was a number involved with the difference of the value of Greek equities" or if there is a relationship between Greece and Vietnam that I do not know about.

Interesting article, nonetheless. Here's the link if you'd like more specifics: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-15/coca-cola-quitting-athens-leaves-market-trailing-vietnam.html