Few nations have had a more eventful 15 years economically than Greece. More or less consistently since 2007 it has suffered both international crises with profound impacts on the country’s finances and debt crises all of its own.
Growthfund, a sovereign wealth vehicle established as Hellenic Corporation of Assets and Participations (HCAP), is in some sense a mirror and response to these times, having been formed in 2016 during the third economic adjustment programme of the Greek debt crisis.
In the eight years before its launch, Greek GDP had dropped by a quarter while unemployment had risen by the same amount, bad debts were up by half and Greece’s sustainability as a eurozone nation had been in doubt throughout.
Growthfund, as it became officially known this year, was set up to encourage state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform, but it also has a broader overall ambition: to bring financial stability, good governance and professionalism to the whole institutional idea of Greece.
