Isabel dos Santos’ Angolan bank has 2% stake in BPI

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Isabel dos Santos’ Angolan bank has 2% stake in BPI

1:14 CAT | 29 Feb 2016

In File Club of Mozambique / Isabel dos Santos

Angola-based BIC Bank, whose largest shareholder is Isabel dos Santos, now holds 2.28 percent of BPI capital.

The announcement was made on Friday evening in a BPI communication to the Portuguese capital market regulator, CMVM, because the holding has risen above the 2 percent qualifying holding level.

According to the report, 1.9 percent of BPI’s capital is held directly by the BIC and the remainder by Fernando Teles, BIC’s second largest shareholder and chairman of the bank’s board of directors, and Fernando Duarte, administrator of the Angolan financial institution.

BIC is one of the Angola’s largest banks, with Isabel dos Santos the largest shareholder with 42.5 percent, followed by Fernando Teles with 37.5 percent. Both strengthened their presence in 2014 and, together, currently hold 80 percent of the capital. The institution also has a presence in Portugal, through BIC Portugal.

Isabel dos Santos also owns 42.5 percent of BIC Portugal with Teles owning the balance, the pair having purchased the 25 percent then owned by Américo Amorim in September 2014.

The press release does not say when the shares were acquired, and BIC’s last available (2014) report does not mention any BPI shareholding. In 2014, BIC was the fifth-largest shareholder after Violas Ferreira Financial which then held 2.68 percent.

BIC’s qualified BPI shareholding comes at a time when shareholders of the bank led by Fernando Ulrich have not yet found a way to respond to what the European Central Bank calls an excessive exposure to Angola.

Isabel dos Santos, which as BPI second largest shareholder holds 19 percent, recently rejected a proposed demerger process in which it would float off the African assets into separate entities – BFA in Angola, and BCI in Mozambique. BFA, is in turn owned 51 percent by BPI and 49 percent by Unitel, an Angolan telecommunications operator controlled by Isabel dos Santos.

The bank’s administration now wants a general meeting to discuss the end of the voting rights shield. For Isabel dos Santos, this would only make sense in a consolidation framework (a merger with BCP having already been proposed).

In Mzambqiue, BPI holds a 30% share in the country’s second largest bank BCI.

Source: Publico