Banif’s directors have lost money on their shares and have had their accounts frozen in the collapsed lender.
The board members now will have to prove that the bank’s destruction was not their fault before they can access their accounts.
The news was unearthed in the minutes of a Bank of Portugal meeting and according to a report in Sol, the directors’ accounts will only be unlocked -
"if it is shown that such persons, entities or members of the management bodies did not, by act or omission, cause the financial difficulties of Banif and did not contribute, by act or omission, to aggravate that situation."
Banif was owned 60% by the State and was sold a week ago to Santander Totta for €150 million with all the bad debts jettisoned before completion.
The ‘bad bank’ assets will be transferred to a management vehicle called Naviget with the State handing their winding up.
This ‘rescue’ is similar to the Banco Espírito Santo one, when it went tits up in August 2014.
The injection of cash by the taxpayer also is similar to the BES 'resolution' when Novo Banco was set up to handle the clean accounts, and BES remaining in charge of the dud loans. The BES directors also had their accounts frozen.
The President of Banif, Jorge Tomé, and the rest of the board are unable to access their accounts. Tomé also has lost out as he owned €230,000 of Banif shares as well as drawing €12,000 pcm.
Other directors also are shareholders with their investments wiped out, none more so than the family of the Banif founder, Horacio Roque.
The beneficiaries of Roque's munificense owned shares worth €45 million at the end of 2014, these now are worthless.
A letter from the European Commission to the former finance minister, Maria Luís Albuquerque, revealed that Brussels wanted an urgent solution to the Banif problem, but that commissioners would be tolerant so as not to not disturb Portugal’s smooth exit from the Troika financial assistance programme.
In November 2015, the then minister refused the possibility of a further public intervention for Banif despite having received a letter from the Governor of the Bank of Portugal warning of the need for a further capital injection.
