Judge Carlos Alexandre has considered a request from Ricardo Salgado’s legal team that the disgraced banker be allowed to have a holiday away from his luxury Cascais home.
Alexandre has ruled that the bust businessman still may not leave the country but was planning to travel to the 12,500 hectare Herdade da Comporta estate near Alcacer do Sal for a maximum of 30 days for a family break and during this period will not have to report to police.
Monday's suspicions that he is in the Algarve are swirling across the media.
Salgado was under house arrest at his luxury mansion in Cascais until the end of 2015 when this restriction was changed to a regime of reporting to the Public Security Police.
Herdade de Comporta, for years considered not only the jewel in the Grupo Espírito Santo crown but the personal property of ‘the clan’, was owned by the Rioforte property company, albeit it mortgaged to the hilt.
When Rioforte went bust, the liquidator put Comporta up for sale but in June 2015 all sales activity at the sprawling coastal estate was suspended as the Portuguese prosecutor authorised raids on Espírito Santo properties worldwide in a search for jewellery, gold, tapestries, artwork and cash along with assets such as boats and cars.
The Rioforte liquidator, based in Luxembourg, wanted to sell the sprawling coastal estate to pay back corporate creditors such as Portugal Telecom, as was, which is still owed €900 million by Rioforte, but the State has frozen any such sale as it wants to keep the estate until after Ricardo Salgado is tried. If a compensation order is then made, Grupo Espírito Santo assets can be disposed of and used to repay the many creditors of companies including group banking arm, BES.
A US venture capital company tried to buy Comporta but was rebuffed, primarily from Caixa Geral de Depósitos which had outstanding loans of around €100 million with Comporta as security.
Such was the poor record keeping and management at Caixa Geral that it was not clear which property assets the bank had secured as collateral.
"In the light of ongoing procedures, we are sorry that the receivers of Rioforte Investments have no choice but to suspend the sale of assets in Herdade da Comporta - Atividades Agro-silvícolas e Turísticas S.A. and in Herdade da Comporta - Fundo Especial de Investimento Imobiliário Fechado,” according to a statement posted on the official receiver’s website in June 2015.
The US fund, Armory Merchant Holdings, which in early April 2015 was said to have bought into the Comporta Estate confirmed later that it had been reviewing the investment but that no money had changed hands, mainly due to Caixa Geral’s intransigence and insistence that its €100 million loan be repaid in full.
Founding Partner of the New York based fund manager, David Storper, commented,
"We have not made an investment other than a significant amount of time and money applied to analysing a potential investment. Our goals have always been to preserve the beauty and prestige of the Comporta properties and ensuring the estate will be properly managed while also improving the economic conditions of the local farmers, other workers and residents of the region."
Astoundingly, the liquidator appointed Espírito Santo clan member Caetano Beirão da Veiga to oversee Comporta’s interim management and disposal.
Building plots currently are being marketed by Engel & Volkers but it is by no means clear where any proceeds will end up as the land ownership records at the ancient farm and estate have remained, perhaps deliberately, confused. There is a suspicion that land is being sold off by Caetano Beirão da Veiga and the money failing to find its way to Rioforte or the State, although this is unconfirmed.
Armory Merchant Holdings investor and veteran financier Asher Edelman accuses the Rioforte administrators, Caetano and Carloto Beirão da Veiga, along with other members of ‘the clan’ of wanting to keep Comporta as a family asset even though it is no longer owned by the family.
"We believe that certain members of the Espírito Santo family are trying to keep Herdade da Comporta for themselves," said Edelman after fruitless meetings.
Herdade da Comporta, located in the municipalities of Alcacer do Sal and Grândola, is considered the largest private property in Portugal, with 12,500 hectares of land. Of this total, about 10,000 hectares is agricultural and forest land, while the remainder is set aside for tourism and real estate developments.
Whether Ricardo Salgado is involved in trying to secure Comporta for the future benefit of ‘the clan’, or whether he is simply going to use his 30 days to relax, is unknown but the loss of Herdade de Comporta is perhaps the most bitter pill the failed banker has had to swallow.
While the nation sits and waits for Salgado to appear in court, the usually sluggish Bank of Portugal had fined Ricardo Salgado and eight of his colleagues for a range of management and fiscal offences that led to the 2014 implosion of the Espírito Santo empire.
Salgado has been fined €4 million by the regulator and is not allowed to be in charge of a business for ten years due his manipulation of information, intentional lack of a sound and effective risk management system, intentional acts of ruinous management, providing false information and breaking the ‘conflict of interest’ rules.
These individual fines add up to €5.5 million but Salgado will have only to pay €4 million since at the time of the offences there was a ceiling of €4 million. Needless to say, Salgado is appealing this regulator ruling and seems no closer to "the public humiliation and impoverishment that he so richly deserves" according to one BES depositor, shafted by the banker.
Salgado is still forbidden from contacting former directors of Grupo Espírito Santo and remains under investigation for crimes including computer forgery, aggravated fraud, breach of trust, tax evasion, corruption in the private sector and money laundering.
Like former PM José Sócrates, Ricardo Salgado's 'day in court' seems as far away as ever.
As for his current whereabouts, we will keep readers informed if he risks a vists to to Algarve which may lack the serenity of the private Comporta estate.
