After all the pledges and prevarication following the €4.9 billion bailout after the collapse of BES, it seems the value of the ‘good bank’ to emerge from the debacle is around €3 billion less than what was ploughed into it.
The news – given by Eduardo da Cunha, the outgoing president of Novo Banco as he prepares to leave the bank that was meant to sell ‘fast, and to the highest bidder’ well over a year ago – is no surprise, but it is still a very nasty pill to swallow.
Observador website suggests the value of Novo Banco has been hit by the effects of Brexit, as well as by the lack of firm offers by the few institutions said to be interested in it.
But the truth is it was doomed from the start. It has been losing money since it opened, posted “historic losses” earlier this year (click here) and has real heavyweight litigation piled up against it (click here).
Talking on SIC television, da Cunha has admitted that none of the offers on the table for ‘the good bank’ amount to much more than a row of beans, financially-speaking.
In simple terms, they are all “below €2 billion” which he agrees is “less than half the initial capital”.
This is much along the lines of all the criticism that followed the BES bailout (click here).
Económico explains today that the bank has four ‘proposals’, from Americans Apollo/ Centerbridge, BPI, Lone Star (also American) and BCP (not specifying price).
