Banco Efisa attracts Portuguese interest

After the failed sale to the Arab group IIBG, Banco Efisa is now attracting Portuguese interest. FIRMA, owned by Bernardo Theotónio-Pereira and Francisco Mendes-Palma, intends to acquire the banking licence of the ex-BPN bank to launch a new financial institution “of national capital with international partners and totally digital,” according to information provided to ECO.

“After several contacts with FIRMA’s international investment banking partners, there is the strong strategic interest to acquire a national bank or banking license for the execution and implementation of the “investment & merchant bank” vision that FIRMA conceived in the first half of 2020,” adds this investment and business agency.

The target is defined: Banco Efisa. FIRMA does not want to advance for now with the figures that are currently on the table. Parvalorem did not respond until the publication of this article.

The bank is back on the market after its €27 million deal with Bahrain’s IIBG Holdings group fell through. The operation was turned down by the Bank of Portugal for not meeting the conditions for its approval, according to Jornal Económico.

This is even the third attempt to sell, after the unsuccessful alienation of the bank to Pivot, formed by a group of investors which included Aethel, of Ricardo Santos Silva and Aba Schubert, or the former minister Miguel Relvas, in 2015. The offer was for €38.3 million, but the European Central Bank (ECB) never gave the green light to the operation.

For FIRMA, the new financial institution should respond “quickly and effectively” to “liquidity and financing problems of national companies and/or act in Portugal”.

Bernardo Theotónio-Pereira and Francisco Mendes-Palma point out that “FIRMA has the responsibility to generate in Portugal what does not exist and be focused on bringing good money and, therefore, a good investment to the national business fabric.”