The Greek government is pressing ahead with its €523m ($518m) secondary offering in OPAP, the state lottery company, despite turmoil in the European new issues market as a number of deals have been pulled or downsized.

The OPAP sale is unusual because it is a fully marketed offer over several weeks to institutional investors and Greek retail investors rather than the shares being placed in a matter of hours in an accelerated bookbuild. Block trades and accelerated sales made up 50% of total equity capital markets issuance in Europe in the first half of this year, according to Dealogic, the investment banking research firm. In contrast marketed secondary offers only made up 8% of total issuance as vendors tried to reduce exposure to volatile markets.