By Anestis Dokas

Listed companies have felt compelled to whisk their cash reserves abroad as the liquidity shortage increases uncertainty among local entrepreneurs.

Kathimerini has discovered that 85 percent of the cash reserves of the 233 Athens-listed firms, i.e. over 9 billion euros, has in the last seven months been forwarded to other countries, with the rest spread evenly across the four Greek systemic lenders.

The majority of the funds are controlled by 40 large- and mid-caps, while the total level of cash reserves was estimated at 10.9 billion euros in end-2014.

“We need to minimize the unforeseeable consequences from possible capital controls,” a company owner told Kathimerini, “as we never expected we’d be in May without a decision on the country’s funding.”