A court official and a fine arts valuer have been busy at the luxury home of disgraced BPP banker João Rendeiro, in a bid to keep tabs on artworks that could go some way towards repaying investors for millions lost in the BPN banking scandal.
Rendeiro is just one of a number of bank administrators ordered to compensate creditors – in his case to the tune of €4.7 million.
As none of them have yet made any of the instalment payments due, creditors have taken the next step: “seizing” his gated home in an exclusive corner of Cascais, as well as two apartments in Lisbon, inventorying art works and freezing bank accounts.
But as reports in the media suggest, a number of painting and sculptures would now appear to be missing.
According to “sources”, the former banker has entrusted friends with “a very significant” trove the whereabouts of which is a complete mystery.
Rendeiro’s artworks are understood to include pieces by big contemporary names, including Julião Sarmento, José Pedro Croft and John Baldessari.
It’s another facet of this banking collapse that links the BPP scandal with that of BPN, which still today sees billions of euros “outstanding” and another collection of artworks, cooling its heels in a vault somewhere – now a fraction of the value paid for it.
BPN’s impressive collection of abstracts by Spanish painter Joan Miró was said to have cost the bank over €85 million, but will now be lucky to recoup half that amount – and that is if the government ever manage to sell it.
