Banker José Maria Ricciardi believes that the best solution for Novo Banco is, instead of selling it, re-capitalise it.
The head of Haitong bank and former Ricardo Salgado acolyte running BESI, said he already has potential investors interested in this business model.
"I think first that Novo Banco should be re-capitalised. Much later there could be a sale through an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the stock exchange. This is my opinion," said Ricciardi whose former employer BESI was sold to Haitong as the collapsed Espirito Santo Group was wound up and sold off.
Ricciardi was clear about one thing, that selling Novo Banco now would incur a huge loss for both the taxpayer and the Resolution Fund which together threw €4.9 billion at the ‘resolution’ to the collapsed BES in 2014.
The banker who has just been investigated, but not fined, by the Bank of Portugal over the collapse of Group Espírito Santo and he part he played at BESI and his invovement with BES-Angola, said he was thinking along the lines of the TAP privatisation where businessmen came in and ran the company but the government still had 50% of the stock which it can dispose of when the time is right.
"We, at Haitong can bring some investors who might be interested in this solution. We know and have contacts with investors that may present themselves as potential buyers," he admitted but of course would not say who they were, if they exist at all.
Ricciardi wants fewer banks in Portugal, a wish that anyway seems to be coming true as one after another is swallowed up on the cheap, or goes under.
"Portugal needs to have fewer banks, but larger and more efficient ones. It needs a restructuring of the financial system, and that restructuring needs to be achieved through a major banking consolidation," said Ricciardi who has a degree in Sciences Economiques Appliqués from the Institute of Business Administration of the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium..
With a possible merger between BCP and Novo Banco being one option and a current hot topic, Ricciardi agrees that this "is one of the solutions" to the issue of Novo Banco, "but there must be more capital so that the operation can take place. But it's not only BCP that needs more capital, but the entire Portuguese banking sector."
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