The new Head Boy at Banco Espírito Santo (BES) says he is opening a new chapter in the bank’s history.
Vítor Bento, chief executive of BES, today wrote a letter to customers (see below) asking for their confidence and claiming that his management team will sort it all out.
"The team I have led since July 14th already is working with full commitment to regain the confidence of markets, generating sustainable benefits and paving the way for a new chapter of the bank," said Ricardo Salgado’s upright and honest replacement at the helm of the drifting bank.
Vítor Bento was saying all the right things today, such as "customers are the reason for BES" which until he took over clearly was not the case.
“Taking over as president of the executive committee, I feel with pride and responsibility, the weight of the valuable trust that is placed in us," said Bento adding that BES "is an institution based in the real economy," which has a "past history and is a pillar of the Portuguese economy, its businessed and citizens, and will continue to be so."
Concluding with a Churchillian, "your trust is our strength," Bento failed to suggest ways in which the public’s trust in the bank once again may be established. He has taken the sensible step of writing to all employees saying he wanted to “regain market confidence and put an end to speculation," but the market waits for a restructuing plan for the whole group, of which he is not in charge, yet.
These platitudes were set against the backdrop of some very annoyed Portugal Telecom shareholders, some of whom have clubbed together and are funding two court actions, one is to sue the management for investing over €850 million in the now bankrupt Espírito Santo subsidiary Rioforte, the claim being that there were serious violations in the duty of care by PT’s management, and the otehr is a civil case against the PT directors for deep incompetence.
The action claims that PT managers should have known better than to tie up 40% of PT’s liquid assets in an Espirito Santo subsidiary just because the parent is a shareholder. Rioforte, now famously, could not find the cash to repay the bond and the whole pack of cards began to fall in slow motion.
One of the bigger holders opf devalued PT shares is based in the US and the legal action may end up in the American court system as the judicial system in Portugal was said by the claimants' spokesman to be 'slow and inefficient.'
Some larger investors in PT stock, two of them Chinese, have seen their money shrink as the company's share price plummeted and now languishes.
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Comments
The former investors understandably intending to prosecute in the US to get a decison within their lifetimes.
It will also be sobering for the Portuguese elite that their 130 year long 'mental (?) breakdown' following the 1884 Berlin Conference that carved up Africa is unknown outside Europe. And little understood within it.
In reducing Portugal's claims to territory and its self-perceived importance on the world stage.. it had a profound effect on the Portuguese and how they see themselves.
All the decades since then cultivating the nationwide idea that laws are 'meant to be broken' - because 'they' (the big countries) broke 'our' laws. (the Portuguese territorial claims)
Read the history books every Portuguese grows up with to understand.