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Greek banks希腊银行Dance of the dead垂死挣扎Banks in Greece are banding together. Even that may not save them.希腊的银行开始同心协力共度难关，即便如此依然难逃厄运。 NAVIGATING Greece’s banks through the shoals of economic crisis is a labour worthy of Heracles. With merely mortal powers, the executives running the country’s biggest banks have not done too bad a job. They entered the crisis with relatively prudent balance-sheets and several raised capital earlier this year, when markets were more forgiving. They are also starting to band together to cut costs and plump up their capital cushions.即便赫拉克勒斯1再世，要带领希腊银行冲出经济危机的暗礁区也并非易事。而作为普通人的行长们做的还不算太坏。经济危机袭来时，各银行资产负债表相对平衡，更有几家趁着年初市场缓和增加了资本。现在他们开始抱团求生，以便降低支出，增加缓冲资本。On August 29th investors cheered the merger of the country’s second- and third-largest banks, Eurobank EFG and Alphabank, to form what will be Greece’s biggest. They also managed to secure a promise of an investment from Qatar and announced plans to issue shares to raise capital.8月29日投资者们庆祝该国第二大和第三大银行，EFG欧洲银行(Eurobnak EFG)和阿尔法银行(Alpha Bank)，合并成为希腊最大的银行。股东们计划通过发新股融资，另外还得到了卡塔尔2(Qatar) 的投资承诺。The news prompted a sharp rally in Greek banking shares, which jumped by almost 30% as investors forecast more mergers. Although the euphoria was ephemeral—shares fell the following day—the deal may do something to help stabilise an embattled financial system.该消息公布后投资者预计未来还有更多合并，希腊银行股价迅速回弹，涨幅近30%。尽管好景不长——股价第二天就回落了，银行间的合并可以使如临大敌的金融系统稍微松一口气。The big advantages of the deal are that it will allow the banks to cut costs, mainly by trimming their branch network, and thus to improve capital ratios. Executives say that within three years the merged bank will reduce its annual costs by €650m ($936m). That would be enough to restore it to profitability if there were no further write-downs on its holdings of Greek government bonds.合并的巨大优势在于银行们可以缩减成本，主要靠撤掉冗余分支网点，从而提高资本充足率3 。行长们认为三年之内，新的银行的年度支出会减少6亿5千万欧元(9九亿3千6百万美元)。只要银行不下调其持有的希腊国债的账面价值4 ，支出减少会使之重新创造利润。Yet talk of profitability looks ambitious given the bleak