On 2 July 2026, Attica Department Stores began trading on Euronext Athens, 21 years after opening beside Syntagma Square in Athens, and therefore becoming the only listed department store in Greece. The listing was a secondary offering: the selling shareholder offered to sell up to 29.92% of the company, but Attica itself received nothing. The offer was 3.9 times oversubscribed and priced at the top of its range for a day-one capitalisation of €192.5 million.

To understand such a move, it is important to grasp the fundamentally different nature of the Greek retail market, where the “everything under one roof” idea disappeared in one generation and was replaced by a premium proposition. In that context, Attica’s IPO is less a financial transaction than the latest instance of a tension every fund-owned department store knows: what happens to a patient, relationship-driven institution when the capital that steers it reasons in exit horizons?

IADS Exclusive: How a century of Greek department stores led to Attica’s IPO

IADS provides its members with a weekly in-depth analysis on retail-oriented topics.

*IADS Exclusives are for members only. You can subscribe to our Substack to receive our weekly exclusives here.*