ATHENS: Greek lender Alpha Bank's 457 million euro rights issue was oversubscribed by 1.5 to 1.6 times, two senior bank officials told Reuters on Friday after the offering's subscription period expired.

Alpha is the first of the country's top three banks to meet a requirement to raise at least 10 percent of its new common equity issue from private investors. This means it avoids falling under the full control of a state bank rescue fund financed from Greece's EU/IMF bailout.

Including a successful 92.9 million euro private placement of stock, Alpha raised 12 percent of its 4.57 billion euro capital need to restore its solvency from the market.

This means it does not need to issue costly contingent convertible bonds (CoCos) to meet its recapitalisation targets.

Underwriters J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, HSBC and France's Credit Agricole, will not need to take up any shares, the officials said.