UPDATE || As the Government comes under increasing criticism for its handling of the BES banking fracas, the Bank of Portugal has hired the troubleshooter it hopes will manage to off-load Novo Banco before any more toxic fall-out.
Eduardo Stock da Cunha, 51, is a shrewd banker with an impressive CV on loan now from his regular job at Lloyds in London.
According to reports this afternoon on Rádio Renascença as soon as he has completed his mission at Novo Banco, he will return to Lloyds.
Thus, now it is simply a question of time – and damage control.
The problem, as the nation’s press is explaining, is that the rocky start of the so-called “good bank” is almost certain to lead to another ‘rush on the bank’ tomorrow (Monday) morning.
Account holders may listen to the assurances given by an increasingly isolated governor of the Bank of Portugal, or they may not.
Portugal’s banking sector, and Novo Banco’s steadily-reducing stock of customers will be on their toes at the start of business tomorrow.
Meantime, political rumblings abound, from all parties.
Former president Mário Soares has been particularly ominous, telling journalists that “the government has got itself into a big mess” over BES and that when Ricardo Salgado speaks – “and he will speak”, the veteran Socialist affirms – “things will become very different”.
Salgado, on €3 million bail facing charges of fraud, abuse of confidence, falsification of accounts and money-laundering, remains “receiving economists and business people”, writes national tabloid Correio da Manhã, at his offices in Estoril, apparently keeping minutely up-to-date with “the situation of the country and the intervention of the Bank of Portugal in BES”, adds the paper.
No-No- Novo Banco: administrative team walks out
Less than two months after Vítor Bento took over the reins at Novo Banco – the ‘good bank’ rising from the ashes of scandal-ridden Banco Espírito Santo – the well-respected CEO has walked out, along with his team, citing irreconcilable differences.
Advertising company BBDO will be ruing the day it suggested the ephemeral butterfly as the focus of its logo.
But as news reports are explaining at length this evening, the writing was on the wall right from the very beginning.
Bento has always said he was looking at a medium- to long-term restructuring plan, while the Bank of Portugal is under pressure to sell Novo Banco as fast as it can.
Discussing the “worst scenario that could possibly have happened after everything that has come before it”, Expresso newspaper boss Ricardo Costa (whose paper broke the story early this morning) told SIC TV that the administrative team’s resignation was “totally unexpected”.
The big questions on the table have been when the bank can be sold, and how much value it could have lost when it sold, he told the news channel.
For the entire team to walk out at the end of a week when the Bank of Portugal’s supervisor had also been unceremoniously ‘dropped’ leaves the bank’s governor Carlos Costa “extremely isolated”, adds the Expresso spokesman.
The nitty-gritty of the problem, Ricardo Costa continued, is the fact that the Government does not want to face up to the fact that it has ‘rescued’ a bank and now needs to deal with the consequences.
Selling, as fast as it can before an election, is seen as the ‘easiest way out’, Costa told SIC, saying the political fallout will nonetheless be on the government’s heels, as everyone is well aware that the €4.9 billion bailout is set to backfire on the taxpayer.
Thus as the news channels buzz and the story is set to fill column inches in the Sunday papers, the pressure now is on central bank governor Carlos Costa to name a new administrative team, and fast.
He is expected to make an announcement either later tonight or tomorrow morning.
As the crisis develops, workers too have entered into the maelstrom, saying it is “very difficult to work in these conditions”.
Spokesman João Matos has been interviewed for his take on the situation, which again centres on political manoeuvres designed off-load Novo Banco before next year’s elections and as rapidly as possible.
Meantime, posters showing former BES boss Ricardo Espírito Santo Salgado as a Disney cartoon-reminiscent masked bank robber have appeared outside Lisbon branches of the bank that is just beginning to take down the old BES logos and put up the butterfly image of Novo Banco, whose slogan is “a good start”…
Troubleshooter called in to prepare Novo Banco for “quick sale”
