Angolan bank BIC eyes Portuguese bank BPN

LUANDA – Banco Internacional de Credito (BIC), Angola’s fourth-biggest commercial bank in terms of deposits , may bid for Portuguese bank BPN, which Portugal’s government is expected to privatise soon, its chief executive said.

Portugal nationalised Banco Portugues de Negocios (BPN) last year, after the bank reportedly lost hundreds of millions of euros amid the global financial crisis, and the country’s State-owned Caixa Geral de Depositos has since injected around three billion euros to prevent it from collapsing.Portugal has said it will soon approve BPN’s privatisation plan.’We may not be the only Angolan bank eyeing BPN,’ Fernando Teles, chief executive officer of Banco BIC, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday. ‘We are studying this possibility,’ he added, without providing further details.Angola-based Banco BIC already has operations in Portugal. Americo Amorim, Portugal’s richest man, and Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, each hold 25 per cent of Banco BIC.Teles owns 20 per cent while the remaining 30 per cent is split between the bank’s board and other small shareholders.Banco BIC is also looking to open up to local and foreign investors by floating some of its shares in London, Johannesburg or Luanda, which does not yet have a bourse, Teles said.He added that a foreign bank recently valued Banco BIC at around US$2 billion, but declined to name the assessor.’We are available to selling part of our capital to national and foreign investors through the stock market,’ said Teles. ‘Other Angolan companies should do the same.’BIC’s main goal in Angola, an oil-producing southern African nation of 16,5 million, was to increase its branches to 128 from 115 by the end of the year, he said.’There is huge potential for growth in Angola’s banking sector. There is talk that only eight per cent of the population has access to banks,’ Teles said.Teles, who headed Angola’s leading private bank, Banco Fomento de Angola, before moving on to Banco BIC, said BIC was also looking to expand to Namibia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Brazil.BIC’s net profit increased by 10 per cent in the first nine months of the year to US$119 million compared with the same period last year. Teles said he expected profits of around US$150 million for the whole year. -Nampa-Reuters