Athens Credit & Special Situations Forum 2026

Registration and Networking Coffee

Delegate arrival, registration and networking coffee.

Opening Remarks | Greece, Cyprus and South East Europe: From Recovery to Deployment

A brief introduction setting the forum’s macro thesis: moving past historical NPL resolution to examine exactly where capital is being deployed across alternative credit, real estate, complex restructuring, and regional growth.

The New Credit Landscape in Greece, Cyprus & SEE

The Paradigm Shift: Sizing Greece’s evolution from a post-crisis recovery story to a mature, investable institutional market.
The Hubs: Leveraging Cyprus as a capital, corporate structuring, and cross-border investment gateway for international capital.
Alternative Channels: Identifying market mispricing, risk vectors, and direct opportunities across private credit and traditional bank lending in SEE.

Greece Repriced: From Distress to Institutional Capital

Label Shift: Assessing whether international investors are correctly pricing Greek risk or if the market still carries an unmerited ‘distress’ discount despite sustained GDP outperformance.
The Next Wave: Sourcing remaining institutional opportunities across corporate lending, infrastructure, tourism, and mid-market real estate.
Underwriting New Headwinds: How capital flows and asset pricing are adapting to upcoming drops in EU funding (RRF roll-off), regional geopolitical tensions, and shifting political cycles.

Networking Coffee Break

NPLs, Servicing and Secondary Sales: What Comes After the Clean-Up?

Secondary Market Liquidity: Mapping out the remaining transaction pipelines in secondary portfolios as primary bank deleveraging wraps up.
Platform Evolution & REO Strategy: How major platforms are evolving into comprehensive asset managers to optimize REO onboarding, real estate workouts, and portfolio monetization.
Regulatory & Court Curveballs: Assessing the operational and valuation impact of the recent Supreme Court decision lowering interest rates paid by debtors to servicers on acquired mortgage NPLs.
The Journey to Re-Performing: Structuring the pipeline for ‘cured’ loans — how to successfully transition assets from NPL status back onto the balance sheets of systemic banks.

Private Credit & Capital Formation: Sourcing Direct Lending

The SME Shift: Assessing whether SMEs are structurally moving away from systemic banks, which parts of the capital stack are opening up, and the true depth of the market.
Post-Restructured Corporates: Capitalizing on refinancing needs for companies exiting NPL restructurings that remain underserved by traditional bank lending.
Local vs. Global LPs: Evaluating appetite from international institutional capital versus domestic funds, and the structural protections required to unlock capital flows.

Networking Lunch

Cyprus as a Capital, Structuring and Investment Gateway

The Regional Bridge: Utilizing Cyprus structures to channel international capital into Greece and the Balkans, including international compliance and modern ESG reporting standards designed to satisfy global LPs.
Wealth Inflows & Relocation: Analyzing corporate structuring trends, alternative asset management setups, and family office capital preservation amid Middle Eastern geopolitical shifts.
Gateway Assets: Sourcing cross-border real estate finance, distressed opportunities, and mid-market growth capital.

Real Estate, Hotels and Tourism Assets: Core Opportunity or Crowded Trade?

The Inbound Sponsor Wave: Deconstructing the massive footprint of international hospitality conglomerates and private syndicates acquiring regional portfolios.
Meeting Foreign Demand: Navigating the fierce competition for premium real estate and core infrastructure assets, driven heavily by international capital.
The ESG & Smart Asset Mandate: How international sustainability mandates and green building regulations are altering underwriting, asset valuations, and financing availability.
Yield Compression vs. Resilience: Managing local pricing pressures and sourcing opportunistic real estate debt if regional tourism demand softens.

Networking Coffee Break

The Investor’s View: Where We See Value Across Greece, Cyprus and South East Europe

Deployment Hotspots: Pinpointing exactly where global special situations, private equity, and credit funds are putting capital today.
The Avoid List: Candid insights on sectors, asset classes, and regional structures that international institutional allocators are actively avoiding.
Unlocking Allocations: Identifying the specific structural, legal, and regulatory changes needed to draw larger institutional pools to the region.

Closing Remarks

Networking Drinks Reception

Registration & Networking Coffee

Opening Remarks | Where Capital Goes Next: Greece, Cyprus and the Balkans

Bank Strategy Across Greece, Cyprus and South East Europe

Post-Cleanup Lending: Assessing corporate credit growth and bank lending appetites following major balance sheet repairs.
The Subsidized Infrastructure Boom: Capitalizing on mega-projects heavily backed by the EU and the Greek State, and how banks are structuring financing for high-priority infrastructure and energy assets.
The Repurchase of Cured Loans: Exploring banks’ appetite for buying back legacy NPL portfolios that have been successfully cured/re-performing (RPLs) by servicers.
Coexistence vs. Competition: Evaluating whether commercial banks are actively competing or partnering with private credit funds on mid-market corporate risk.
Capital Optimization: Mapping future pipelines for synthetic securitizations and capital relief trades.

The Balkans Credit & Asset Management Landscape: Balancing Risk, Returns and Recovery

Overcoming the Emerging Market Stigma: How global investors are assessing Western Balkan risk and whether the underwriting lessons from the Greek recovery can be exported to the Balkans.
Sector Hotspots & Public-Private Partnerships: Identifying alternative deployment opportunities across energy, sustainable infrastructure, and high-yield hospitality via PPP structures.
The Funding Gap & Portfolios: Assessing how systemic European banking groups are managing asset quality, write-offs, and NPL carve-outs across fragmented markets.
Exit Visibility & Flagship Deals: Addressing the LP liquidity question and what the exit environment looks like for alternative credit in the Balkans.
The Servicing Architecture: Evaluating cross-border operational friction in multi-jurisdictional portfolios and localized debt recovery timelines.

Networking Coffee

Special Sits, Workouts & Complex Restructurings: Managing Regional Frameworks

Pockets of Distress: Identifying corporate turnarounds, refinancing walls, and complex restructurings sitting outside the traditional banking tier.
Complexity Pricing: How special situations funds assess, discount, and price legal friction, borrower behavior, and local court capacity.
Rescue Capital: Deploying bridge loans, rescue finance, and asset-backed restructuring capital from Athens to the Adriatic.
Next-Gen Debt Management: Assessing how artificial intelligence, credit analytics, and advanced predictive data tools are being deployed by modern platforms to price complexity and accelerate workout timelines.

Closing Investor Roundtable | Where Would You Put €100m in South East Europe Today?

Asset Allocation: A direct debate pitting Greece against Cyprus and the Balkans across alternative credit, real estate, and infrastructure.
Hype vs. Value: Separating overhyped, crowded asset classes from genuinely underpriced regional opportunities.
The Hard Stops: Pinpointing the exact macroeconomic or geopolitical deal-breakers that cause international funds to pull their capital.

Networking Lunch & Event Close

Private Meetings / Departure.