As the Bank of Portugal continues to make heavy weather of choosing the right buyer for Novo Banco, stuck with four lacklustre bids that will trigger a political storm when revealed, a new contender has appeared out of nowhere.
Minsheng Financial has put in a bid that has not been through the labourious application process and the BoP governor Carlos Costa has not dismissed this approach out of hand, as perhaps he should.
If you sense the invisible hand of the ghost of Espirito Santo in this proposed deal, your instincts would be correct as Minsheng is being 'advised' by Haitong Bank which used to be called BES Investimento and is led by one of the remaining clan members, Jose Maria Ricciardi.
Ricciardi has been itching to get his hands on Novo Banco and managed to persuade the Chinese owners of Haitong that his name should not be associated with the 2014 collapse of the Grupo Espirito Santo empire and that he was the man to lead Haitong.
Minsheng is based in Hong Kong and is involved in financial services and real estate funds with a licence to manage assets and for investment banking. No doubt the press soon will uncover a murky past and some lurid activities of its board members but until then we must assume it has the wherewithall to pull off this deal and install Ricciardi on the Novo banco throne he feels he so richly deserves.
The head man from HK is Sing Wang but he, and everyone else involved in this last minute bid, is denying everything, if they can be contacted at all.
The four financial institutions whose bids are being considered by the Bank of Portugal, namely, BCP, BPI, Loan Star, and Apollo-Centerbridge, will not be best pleased if this outsider snatches the prize away as Minsheng has not followed any of the proceedures necessary to be considered for Novo Banco's new owner.
The way Carlos Costa will handle this new bid, should it be better than the ones in his in-tray, will be to declare the competition closed, with no winner selected. Then he will be free to sell the bank in a direct transaction with Minsheng, amid howls of protest from the unlucky bankers whose bids were dismissed and who inevitably will seek compensation from the Bank of Portugal aka the taxpayer.
Sérgio Monteiro, fronting the bidding process for the Bank of Portugal, may yet earn his €25,000 per month if he can get the €4.9 billion necessary to settle the debts incurred in the BES rescue and in the setting up of Novo Banco.
The bids under consideration for Novo Banco are said to be in the 'under €100 million' range so it would be a remarkable feat to get anywhere near the sum needed to repay the taxpayer and the Resolution Fund, both of which so generously lent a financial hand to keep Grupo Espirito Santo's Ricardo Salgado from even more trouble than he is in already.
