The sale continues the gradual deleveraging and retrenching from years of overseas expansion by Bank of Cyprus after it was forced to convert large deposits to equity and recapitalise last year. Its shares have been suspended from equity trading for more than a year.

The bank, which sold its Greek operations to Pireaus in March 2013, said the sale consideration amounted to approximately €165 million.

The realised accounting gain from the transaction was €27 million, with a positive impact of about €46 million, or 0.2 percentage points on the group’s core Tier 1 capital ratio.

Aspart of a €10 billion international bailout for Cyprus last year from the EU and IMF, Bank of Cyprus was also forced to absorb some assets of now-defunct Laiki Bank. The Serbian loans were part of those legacy assets.

Source: Cyprus Mail