Portugal's Banco Português de Investimento (BPI) bank on Thursday ceded control of Angola's biggest bank to the Unitel telecoms company run by Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the country's president.
After pressure from the European Central Bank to give up its majority stake, BPI sold 2% of Banco de Fomento Angola (BFA) to Unitel to bring its stake down to 48.1%.
Unitel now holds a controlling stake of 51.9% of the leading bank in Angola.
Isabel Dos Santos already was one of the largest shareholders in BPI, along with CaixaBank from Spain.
The €28 million sale of the 2% stake allows BPI to reduce its exposure to Angolan government debt, which the ECB deemed too risky under new European banking laws that came into force back in 2015.
The ECB gave BPI until April 10, 2016 to reduce its risks, a deadline that was extended.
Smaller shareholders in BPI had previously complained that the sale of the 2% stake unfairly benefitted Isabel Dos Santos due to her large interests in BPI and Unitel.
The sale to Unitel has been seen as a means of securing Isabel dos Santos' backing for a bid by CaixaBank, Spain's largest bank, to take over BPI.
CaixaBank has spent months trying to work out a deal with dos Santos, who owns an 18.6% in BPI, to effect a takeover.
The restructuring plan of Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) involves a reduction in the workforce by 2,200 members of staff by 2020. The bank’s former president, António Domingues said there would be no redundancies in his plan to slim down the 16,000 head count.
Without this restructuring plan for CGD, which also provided for its recapitalisation, the bank "would cease to be viable in the long term," said Domingues, who presided over the bank between August and December 2016 and resigned over his refusal to submit tax and asset statements.
After suffering a net loss of €189 million in the first nine months of 2016, Caixa should return to profitability this year, generating a €200 million surplus, Domingues assured a parliamentary committee on Wednesday.
Domingues is to be replaced by Paulo Macedo, former Minister of Health and former Vice Chairman of the Board of BCP. Macedo awaits the green light from the ECB before he is able to take up his post.
In August 2016, the European Commission agreed the recapitalisation plan for CGD that could end up costing over €5 billion, such is the shattered state of the bank’s finances after years of mismanagement.
The first stage of this recapitalisation, a €1.45 billion injection, took place on Wednesday, according to the Ministry of Finance.
The Portuguese State (aka ‘the taxpayer) contributed €945 million and the public holding Parcaixa (aka the taxpayer) put in €500 million.
During the second phase, the State (aka the taxpayer) will inject "up to €2.7 billion" into Caixa, according to a statement from the Ministry of Finance.
