ATHENS – The merger of the troubled Pancreta Bank with Attica Bank will create a fifth major financial institution in Greece that the management said could see a profit of 80 million euros ($89 million) as soon as 2025.

The new bank will complement the Big Four of The National Bank, Alpha Bank, Eurobank, and Piraeus Bank which had big profits after shedding a mountain of bad loans and being bailed out by the state during a 2010-18 economic crisis.

The new bank also aims to sell bad loans to collection companies hounding people to repay but the merger was castigated by the major opposition SYRIZA, whose leader Stefanos Kasselakis said it was a sweetheart deal.

He earlier told Proto Thema that, “there was never a condition where finding a strategic investor involved a loss of 800 million euros ($893 million) to hold only 33 percent, while the strategic investor held 51 percent by investing 300 million euros ($335 million.) The state, with its own invested capital and the bank cleaned up, could attract other institutional investors.”

The new bank’s leaders said that it hopes to attain a 9 percent share of new loans that would almost double its combined loan portfolio, with Attica in essence absorbing the smaller bank.

Profits are expected to triple by 2028 as Greece’s economy has accelerated with the end of three international bailouts of 326 billion euros ($364 billion) and the recovery interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic which is now almost over.

Dividends of 800 million euros ($893 million) are seen being distributed by 2034 with Greek banks paying almost no interest for deposits and charging high interest for loans and using ATMs and other fees, raking in a bonanza for them.

The merger will see branches closed in line with the trend of brick-and-mortar offices less needed as people bank more on their computers and phones, and there are expected to be layoffs even after voluntary retirements.

The merger is set to be approved at an Attica shareholders meeting on Sept. 3 after the Parliament controlled by the ruling New Democracy gave its approval and Finance Minister Kostis Hatzidakis said it would stave off more woes.

He believes it is a positive development, “considering the course of the bank over the last 12 years, the problems it had to face and the fact that the supervisory authority points out that if the agreement is not made, we will have a number of problems,” he told Parliament’s Committee on Economic Affairs, said the state’s Athens-Macedonia News Agency AMNA.

“We had an agreement that we negotiated for months without any other investor appearing. For all these reasons, I believe that this agreement should be supported,” despite critics’ charges that the state is putting too much money into it.

The initial agreement was done to help Attica clean up its balance sheet and create a new banking organization, an entity that later in 2024 will get a capital boost to cover needs and reduce exposure to bad loans.“The two shareholders confirmed that an agreement in principle on a commonly accepted basis had been reached,” the bank said, without providing details. The Greek banks bailout fund, the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, owns 72.5 percent of Attica, with Pancreta holding 5 percent, Thrivest Holding 4.4 percent and pension funds about percent.