Banco Espírito Santo expected to lose controlling stake in BES Angola

Portuguese bank Banco Espírito Santo (BES) is expected to lose its controlling stake in Banco Espírito Santo Angola (BESA) as its Angolan partners prepare to inject capital into the Angolan bank, according to Portuguese financial daily newspaper Jornal de Negócios.
In 2013, following a capital increase from USD170.5 million to US$670.5 million, BES increased its stake from 51.94 percent to 55.71 percent, Angola’s Portmill kept a 24 percent stake and Angola’s Geni increased its stake from 18 percent to 1.99 percent.
This increase in BES and Geni’s stakes was managed by reducing the stake owned by individual shareholders, which previously owned 5 percent of BESA and after the capital increase ended up with 1.3 percent of the bank.
The Angolan State may also take on re-capitalization of the bank, of which BES is for now the largest shareholder, after the State provided BES Angola with a guarantee to secure payment of loans totaling US$5.7 billion.
A BES official said recently that the bank was negotiating with the Angolan authorities the exact conditions under which the guarantee may be executed, which could mean that the Angolan State would take a stake in BES Angola.
The deal is related to loans of US$5.7 billion during the period in which BESA was headed up by Álvaro Sobrinho all traces of which have been lost and which account for around 80 percent of the Angolan bank’s credit portfolio.
According to Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso, BES Angola provided loans without guarantees to unknown beneficiaries, with credit portfolios that simply do not exist. MDT/Macauhub