The former Secretary of State for Transport and Communications, Sérgio Monteiro, is to be hired by the Resolution Fund to front a new sale process for Novo Banco.
Monteiro’s hiring results from a need expressed by the Bank of Portugal and Novo Banco to have someone exclusively running the sale, as those who had been in charge ‘have other functions in regulating the financial sector.’
During the selection process, the various banks that were forced to top up the Resolution Fund when BES needed bailing out were contacted by the Portuguese Association of Banks in order to approve Monteiro.
Carlos Costa, the current governor of the Bank of Portugal, failed to offload Novo Banco to any of the selected foreign buyers whose low offers reflected his lack of salesmanship.
The state needed €4.9 billion to clear the debt owed to the Resolution Fund and the taxpayer so offers received of around €1.2 billion from two Chinese chancers had to be rejected.
The rushed sale of Novo Banco which, according to its auditors PwC has ‘unquantifiable liabilities,’ was always going to end in tears and Costa’s move to set up a keen youngster to front the next attempt at selling the bank cunningly distances himself from crystalising a taxpayer loss running into the billions.
On the plus side, Santander is making noises that it may be interested should Novo Banco come back on the market.
The executive chairman of the Spanish bank says his priority is to grow the business through organic means but if Novo Banco again is up for sale, it will be reviewed as an exception.
Santander easily is able to afford a full price for Novo Banco as it has just made €5 billion in profit in the first nine months of the year, according to chief executive José António Alvarez who looked at Novo Banco when it first was for sale but decided not to make an offer.
Ana Botín, the chairman of the Santander group said that Portugal is a strategic market - a statement made when she was last in Portugal but which has not yet resulted in acquisitions.
