BCP says Sonangol wants to remain a reference shareholder in bank

  • Lusa
  • 21 October 2019

The Portuguese company reiterated that Sonangol wanted to remain a reference shareholder of Millennium BCP.

BCP said that Sonangol wanted to remain a reference shareholder of Millennium BCP, after a meeting of the presidents of the board of directors and executive committee, Nuno Amado and Miguel Maya, with the head of the Angolan oil company.

In a statement sent on Monday, BCP said that its senior managers had met with the chairman of the board of directors of Sonangol, Gaspar Marins, last Wednesday in Luanda, Angola, as part of regular meetings between the two institutions.

“At the meeting, the results and activity in the first half of 2019 were analysed, as well as the goals defined in Millennium BCP’s Strategic Plan for the period 2018-2021, focused on sustained growth and profitability. With a 19% stake in the capital of Portugal’s largest private bank, Sonangol’s management reaffirmed the interest of the shareholder in the investment and in remaining a reference shareholder of Millennium BCP,” the institution said in the note.

The executive directors of Sonangol, Baltazar Miguel, Osvaldo Macaia, Jorge Vinhas and Luís Maria also attended the meeting.

In July, BCP’s chief executive, Miguel Maya, said that there was no change in the known position on the stake in Sonangol’s bank, after news that spoke of the Angolan oil company’s interest in reducing its stake in the financial sector.

“Sonangol’s divestment plan in the financial sector is nothing new,” Miguel Maya said.

“BCP has permanent contact with the representatives of shareholder Sonangol and can confirm that there is no change to the position that was made known to the market by official sources in due course.”

The person in charge gave assurances after Angolan newspaper Expansão reported that Sonangol was finalising its strategy to dispose of its holdings in Angolan banks and BCP and that the preference was to sell the shares on the stock exchange.

Sonangol is the second-largest shareholder in BCP with 19.49% of the capital, after the Chinese group Fosun, with 27.06%, according to data from late 2018.

In March, in an interview with RTP, Angola’s president, João Lourenço, was asked about the guidelines given to Sonangol regarding the oil company’s holdings in Portugal – indirectly in Galp and directly in Millenium BCP – and then the Angolan head of state said they were to be maintained, in principle.

João Lourenço assumed that in the case of Galp, as it is linked to oil extraction, there is no reason to leave.