Aethel Partners wants to block the sale of Novo Banco

Aethel Partners, the British society headed by Ricardo Santos Silva, told its lawyers to move forward with a judicial proceeding aiming to block the sale of Novo Banco to the North-American fund Lone Star. The company, which had previously been interested in the transition bank carved out of BES, told the Bank of Portugal the sale process should restart.

This week, the British society Aethel Partners has sent a document to the Bank of Portugal, discloses Reuters. The company headed by Ricardo Santos Silva mentions the Bank of Portugal did not properly consider the 3.8 billion euros’ offer Aethel made to acquire Novo Banco.

The spokeswoman for the British company told Reuters: “Aethel has already instructed its lawyers in Portugal to rapidly find a way to suspend the (sales) process and block the decision to sell Novo Banco to Lone Star”. Aethel also states that “the execution of these judicial proceedings (seeking information and documents) may lead to an injunction and then to an action to challenge the decision”. The same request was made by NB‘s largest debt holders which was eventually transferred to the bad bank.

"Aethel has already instructed its lawyers in Portugal to rapidly find a way to suspend the (sales) process and block the decision to sell Novo Banco to Lone Star.”

The group, headed by BlackRock and Pimco, represents two thirds of the 2.2 billion euros invested in senior debt. All in all, these investors have lost 1.5 billion euros when the Bank of Portugal decided to transfer these senior bonds from Novo Banco to the insolvent estate of Banco Espírito Santo. Those investors also aim to block the sale process to Lone Star.

When contacted by Reuters, the spokesman for the Bank of Portugal and the spokeswoman for Lone Star declined to comment the possibility of Aethel moving forward with the proceedings.