Portugal’s stock market regulator this afternoon suspended trading in Banif shares on the Lisbon stock exchange.
Shortly after 2pm the regulator CMVM had enough of observing the roller-coaster ride Banif’s shares had been suffering and, using share trading rules, it issued a statement advising the suspension of trading in Banif shares and that it had asked for the company to provide it with information on its voluntary sale process.
CMVM sensibly is acting before sensitive data on who is going to buy the bank, if anyone, is leaked to a select few who could use the information potentially to make a killing.
The suspension has been taken by the market as an indication that Banif is close to a deal to sell at least the 60.5% of its shares owned by the state, and maybe 100% of its capital, to a third party.
Another scenario is that Banif has alerted CMVM that it indeed will be presenting a rescue or restructuring proposal by the end-of-Friday deadline.
The president of Banif, Jorge Tomé, said this week that the bank is up for sale, since which cash has flowed out if its branch network as depositors took fright, mostly after a TV report which said the bank effectively was bust anyway.
The Prime Minister said yesterday that there will be no losses for Banif depositors but that the public accounts would be hit as Banif still owes the state for the controversial 2012 bailout which saw €1.1 billion of public money pumped into the ailing company by the Passos Coelho coalition government.
The bank’s management, unions and customers all want to take action against the "highly irresponsible behavior of TVI" after a news programme on Sunday evening reported that the bank was to close.
The assertion is that the programme "caused irreparable damage to the institution and to the public interest," reads a statement sent by the bank to the media.
The TVI programme reported that the bank would be split into two entities, and the ‘good bank’ part would go to Caixa Geral de Depósitos.
Banif says the TV report was “irresponsibly and ethically reprehensible and without any concern for truth-seeking it published wrong statements with serious consequences for the bank's activity."
TVI did apologise to viewers and to shareholders, Banif employees and customers, saying it “may have come to wrong conclusions about the fate of the financial institution."
This was not enough and Banif shared dropped 41% on Monday and €200 million was withdrawn in cash.
