António Domingues is going back to his former employer NOS where he can reflect on the mess he made of his brief and eventful period as head of Caixa Geral de Depósitos.
Having left Caixa Geral after an unhelpful and ultimately destructive public argument with Finance Minister, Mário Centeno, António Domingues will rejoin one of Portugal's largest media and communications groups as a non-executive director under the leadership of Miguel Almeida.
The decision to take Domingues (pictured below) back into the fold was taken by the board on March 1st and the Securities and Exchange Commission was informed yesterday with ratification needed at the next shareholders’ meeting.
Domingues was at Caixa Geral between August and December last year, having been asked by the government to rescue the troubled State-owned lender and oversee a recapitalisation programme while investigations into the bank’s history of corruption and self-serving management were in progress.
The cover up over his terms and conditions of employment at Caixa Geral left the Finance Minister in the embarrassing position of having to explain why Dominugues was exempt from lodging his income and asset statements, as would be normal for anyone running a State-controlled company.
Denials of the deal were trumped by the disclosure by Lobo Xavier of message between the pair which showed that such an agreement had been reached, even though Centeno had no power to agree such an exemption.
António Lobo Xavier, who disclosed key messages between Doningues and Centeno, also sits on the NOS board, but probably will not be sitting next to Domingues come the next board meeting.
