could get rid of the bitter pill of not having been able to close the purchase of the Portuguese EuroBic in 2020 and rise as the successful bidder now. The entity led by Juan Carlos Escotet is drawn among those with the greatest options to buy the entity owned by the Angolan businesswoman Isabel do Santos by 42.5% after Banco de Correos CTT and the fund have withdrawn from the race. American JC Flower.
In the final battle, the fight would be between Abanca, NovoBanco and the Apollo fund, with more options for the first two, although the Portuguese newspaper Jornal Economico revealed that it is Abanca that is already in exclusive talks for its acquisition after having stayed Novobanco out of the race due to the impossibility of making purchases until Brussels ends the restructuring of the entity.
Abanca, according to the same newspaper, would have also entered into the fight in the final stretch, although other sources assure that it never stopped considering its acquisition. In the entity they avoided confirming or denying the different information arguing that they do not comment on this type of transaction.
The competitive process for EuroBic was opened in January of last year after in June 2020 Abanca considered frustrated a purchase agreed in February of that same year with the Angolan billionaire. His pact was to acquire 95%, including 42.5% in the hands of Isabel Do Santos and 37.5% of the also Angolan Fernando Teles.
The operation was agreed in record time as a result of the revelations of Luanda Leaks that launched an investigation into possible money laundering of the businesswoman and daughter of the former president of Angola, José Eduardo do Santos, but in the summer, although the amount invested was not disclosed , in the market a potential disbursement of around 200 million was considered good.
EuroBic is a medium-sized entity in Portugal, with a market share of between 2% and 2.5% in loans and deposits. The entity closed the year 2020 with losses amounting to 5 million euros due to provisions, but in previous years it reached 50 million. It has some 184 branches, 1,475 employees, some 257,000 clients and some 12,000 million in business volume, according to its latest annual financial report for 2020. It has a network in Portugal and Angola and is focused on international business. For Abanca it would mean taking a leap in scale in Portugal, after in 2018 it acquired the business in Spain from the Portuguese purchase of Caixa Geral and that of Deutsche Bank in Portugal.
The history of Abanca is a history of acquisitions. The penultimate has been the integration that acquired the French Crédit Agricole and that reinforces it in the Basque Country. It added 4,400 million in assets and consolidated itself as the seventh group in the sector.
The Banesco group landed in Spain in 2011 with Banco Etcheverría, which – as a result of the merger of the old Galician savings banks – and which it would rename as Abanca. Later it added the business of Banco Caixa Geral and the network of Deutsche Bank PCB Portugal or Novobanco, although it also failed in the talks with Deutsche Bank for the business in Spain and in the attempted merger with Liberbank. If EuroBic succeeds, it will become the sixth entity in the Portuguese market and will add its more than 11,000 million in business to the almost 104,000 million it currently manages.
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