Novo Banco’s largest debtors to be heard late April

  • Lusa
  • 16 April 2021

Among the major debtors of Novo Banco are Martifer, construction company José Guilherme, businessman José Berardo and Promovalor, led by Benfica president Luís Filipe Vieira.

Luís Filipe Vieira, Nuno Vasconcellos and Bernardo Moniz da Maia are some of the names that the Novo Banco commission of enquiry is expected to hear in the last week of this month, kicking off a series of hearings of the bank’s major debtors.

“In the last week of April, the major debtors of Novo Banco will begin to be heard,” Fernando Negrão, chairman of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the losses recorded by Novo Banco and attributed to the Resolution Fund, told Lusa on Friday.

Among the names to be heard are the president of Benfica, Luís Filipe Vieira, and Nuno Gaioso Ribeiro (Promovalor and C2 Capital Partners), Nuno Vasconcellos (Ongoing), João Gama Leão (Prebuild) and Bernardo Moniz da Maia.

“Some of these people have already been contacted and have shown total availability. With others, contact is difficult, but we are confident that it will be carried out successfully,” social democrat Fernando Negrão told Lusa.

Among the major debtors of Novo Banco are Martifer, construction company José Guilherme, businessman José Berardo and Promovalor, led by Benfica president Luís Filipe Vieira.

The issue was given greater prominence in the committee of enquiry by Mariana Mortágua (BE) on 12 March, when, during the hearing with the former deputy governor of the Bank of Portugal (BoP) Pedro Duarte Neves, she called the difference in credit exposures between two reports a “mystery”: one by PwC and another by EY, six months apart, referring to 2014.

The BE deputy gave examples of companies such as Martifer, which in the PwC report had an exposure of around €281 million and, six months later, EY identified €557 million, or José Guilherme, which went from €137 to €262 million, and also pointed out the cases of Berardo (from €282 to €308 million) or Promovalor (from €304 to €487 million).

According to data to which Lusa had access, other debtors include Ongoing, Prebuild and Bernardo Moniz da Maia (‘holding’ Sogema).

On 29 March, questioned about these differences, the former president of the Resolution Fund José Ramalho said they were due to the perimeter assessed of the companies in question, given that in one case, “exposures were assessed more at an individual level and in another more at the level of economic groups”.

On 8 April, the former director of internal audit at Novo Banco revealed in parliament that the Resolution Fund also asked for specific authorship about Novo Banco’s exposure to builder José Guilherme via Invesfundo, similar to what it had already done with Luís Filipe Vieira’s Promovalor.

“In both cases, an external audit ended up being done. In the case of Promovalor from the outset, it was the preferred option,” he said, and as for José Guilherme and Invesfundo the bank, in a decision that included executive chairman António Ramalho, began “an internal audit process”.

Then, according to Luís Seabra, the Resolution Fund, “as a matter of efficiency and opportunity”, ended up wanting it to be covered by Deloitte’s special audit.

On 15 September 2020, in a hearing at the budget and finance committee, the executive chairman of Novo Banco, António Ramalho, mentioned a specific audit by the Resolution Fund of the restructuring of outstanding loans by the company of Luís Filipe Vieira, current president of Benfica.