As World War II raged across Europe, Portugal sold tungsten and other goods to Nazi Germany, profiting handsomely from its neutral status in the conflict. The Nazis paid with gold bullion looted from countries they conquered and, it is suspected, from victims of the Holocaust.
After the Nazis lost the war, Portugal secretly sold off some of this gold to Indonesia, the Philippines and above all China, working through Macao, its colonial enclave near Hong Kong. Those sales, disclosed for the first time by a former senior minister who insisted on anonymity, were the final chapter in a story that has now come back to haunt Portugal’s central bank and some of the country’s more prominent business families. http://gold.greyfalcon.us/gold10.html Fifty years after the defeat of Germany, Europe has been stunned by a stream of revelations about Nazi gold: who handled it, where it came from and who reaped financial rewards from genocide. The issue initially arose in Switzerland, where investigators are now examining the Swiss financial transactions with the Nazis and the fate of lost Jewish wealth in World War II. In recent months, the focus has broadened to include Sweden, Spain and Portugal, where newspapers and historians are raising a separate set of questions about the role of local banks in financing trade and collaborating with the Nazi regime. At the same time, the Poles have ordered an investigation into the missing wealth of Poland’s victims. The Netherlands, too, plans an inquiry to find out what happened to 75 tons of public and private gold, half of the total plundered, which is still missing. The story of the Nazis’ gold has struck a particular nerve in Lisbon because, after Switzerland, Portugal was the largest importer of the gold. The country was officially neutral during the war but its regime had strong Nazi sympathies. Like a dark, forgotten ghost, Lisbon’s past has revived with tales of the city as a pivotal center for spies and a place of unscrupulous deals, where weapons and goods were transshipped to support the German war machine. Older people here say they knew that the country’s neutrality was a useful cover for doing business with all sides. But few had heard of the enormous gold trade with Germany. According to Allied records, close to 100 tons of Nazi gold ended up in Portugal after first passing through Swiss banks that were apparently helping to disguise its origins. Almost half of this gold is believed to have been stolen from the treasuries of European countries that fell to the Nazis. Records of Portugal’s wartime dealings have recently been revealed in the news media here, astonishing today’s generation of Portuguese. They also appear to have embarrassed the establishment deeply. President Jorge Sampaio and Prime Minister Antonio Guterres have discussed the issue in meetings of the Cabinet, but have so far declined to comment publicly. Until 1968, when the dictator Antonio Salazar retired, censorship was used to keep secrets. When Portugal became a democracy in 1974, there were more pressing matters like the leftist revolution and the independence of the colonies. Now, politicians, historians, students and news organizations are demanding that the Government open its archives and give a full accounting of collaboration with Hitler. ”It’s a political and a moral issue,” said Fernando Rosas, a professor of contemporary history at New University in Lisbon. ”This Government should speak out. It’s not their doing.” The Bank of Portugal, which occupies a somber building on the downtown Rua do Comercio, has long had a venerable image, but recent celebrations of its 150th anniversary were clouded by the public debate about its Nazi collaboration. It declined to send representatives to recent round-table discussions on the gold issue organized by the city of Lisbon, television stations and universities. Because the bank had a monopoly over the gold trade until after the war, its archives are considered vital. But it has spurned requests from historians and journalists for access to wartime documents, saying it is bound by strict secrecy laws. The bank has promised to study the matter. Down in its vaults, the bank still has ”two or three” gold bars stamped with swastikas, according to Nuno Jonet, a bank official. ”We kept them as curiosities, Mr. Jonet said. ”We do not admit any wrongdoing. The gold acquisition was the result of perfectly legal trade operations. I’m sure people at the time did not know the gold coming here was stolen.” Portugal used the same arguments before the Allied Tripartite Commission, which was in charge of recovering stolen gold after the war. American officials tried to pressure Portugal to surrender 44 tons of gold by freezing its assets in the United States and cutting back on wheat exports. But the Salazar regime did not budge. In 1953, the Allies finally gave up, accepting the four tons Lisbon offered to return and letting it keep the rest. ”By then the cold war was under way and the Americans wanted to keep the Azores as a strategic base,” said Jose Freire Antunes, who has written a history of the Azores. Both Portugal and Switzerland insist that they were not aware that the Nazi gold they used for trade had been looted. Antonio Louca, a historian at New University who is writing a doctoral thesis on Portugal’s dealings in Nazi gold, dismisses these claims. He said that as early as 1942 the Allies officially notified Western countries that Nazis were disposing of stolen gold through Swiss banks. Mr. Louca said he has recently obtained documents from Portugal’s Foreign Ministry archives that cite the warning. Old trade records tell part of the story: in 1940, less than 2 percent of Portugal’s exports went to Germany; by 1942, that figure had reached 24.4 percent. Portugal sent Germany textiles, boots and food, but it earned most from tungsten, an alloy used in steel, which was indispensable to the Nazi war machine. ”At the height of the tungsten fever, prices in Lisbon increased by up to 1,700 percent,” one history book reports. Lisbon was also a crucial intermediary for Berlin, bringing insulin and industrial diamonds from Latin America and food from its African colonies and selling Nazi gold in South America. A businessman whose foreign company had a long presence here said: ”Salazar, the President, was the master of wartime neutrality. He charged extortionary prices.” The full story of Portugal’s Nazi gold may not be hidden in bank ledgers. There were other, secret channels. Mr. Louca, the historian, said he has obtained German documents, recently declassified, that show that in 1944 couriers were secretly running large gold shipments from Germany to its embassy in Lisbon. The couriers bypassed the Portuguese central bank and sold the gold locally. http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/?p=55536 The documents raise several disturbing questions and touch briefly on the fate of one large and wealthy Jewish family. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/10/world/nazi-gold-and-portugal-s-murky-role.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm http://www.nndb.com/people/272/000128885/ By the summer of 1944, Europe was in chaos. German forces had occupied Hungary, an ally, when it took steps to withdraw from the war, and the Nazis had captured several members of the Weiss-Chorin family, owners of the country’s largest industrial empire. Under duress, the family made a deal with the SS, according to postwar American intelligence reports: the Nazis would get a large part of the Weiss empire and the family could leave Hungary. At least 44 family members left, of whom 32 arrived in Portugal in June 1944. In July, the German Embassy in Lisbon began complaining in telegrams to Berlin that the gold price in Lisbon was dropping. Berlin responded by asking if this was a result of the sales by the couriers or sales by the Weiss family, which it suspected of bringing valuables from Hungary. Members of the Weiss family have said they brought no gold to Lisbon. ”Why was this gold coming here and why did the couriers not sell the German gold to the central bank?” Mr. Louca said. ”The chances are that the gold included coins and jewelry, which had been stolen from individuals.” Buyers reportedly included Portuguese businessmen and bankers, some of whom still own large establishments today. After the war, the Allies demanded that Portugal give back at least 44 tons of looted Nazi gold. But Lisbon instead began to sell off its Nazi bullion secretly through Macao, with much of it going to China in the 1950′s and 60′s. According to a government official who was himself involved in supervising numerous shipments, the China-bound gold was flown from Portugal to Macao, and from there moved across the Chinese border. The former official said some ingots sent to Macao were still embossed with the sealof the Dutch Treasury, which had been plundered by the Nazis; others were marked with swastikas. A number of bars were carried from Macao to the Philippines and Indonesia, strapped on people’s bodies, the official said. Historians, politicians and journalists are demanding that the Lisbon Government tell all. Fernando Rosas, the professor who is also editor of the prestigious magazine Historia, said the Government must allow free research and clarify the whole issue. ”The country needs to know the truth,” he said. Mr. Louca wonders if the gold story will ever be fully unraveled. ”Looting monetary gold was one thing — stealing it from individuals, from victims, is another,” he said. ”There is evidence that both types of gold came to Portugal.” But, he added, even if new details spill out of official archives, it may be too difficult to separate the different sources of gold. http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/10/world/nazi-gold-and-portugal-s-murky-role.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm O chamado "caso BPN" é o maior exemplo da promiscuidade existente entre a política e o sector financeiro - além de um roubo, naturalmente. A fatura desta gigantesca fraude levará anos a ser paga pelos contribuintes, que esperam os resultados da investigação policial e vão assistir à segunda comissão de inquérito. Ao fim de todos estes anos, infelizmente, ...continuamos a não ter certezas, nem sequer sobre se a nacionalização do BPN foi a melhor solução. Até disto já podemos duvidar, sobretudo quando o valor da fatura desta decisão, que ainda não está completamente auditada, parece não parar de crescer. Visto da atualidade, o "risco sistémico" que foi na altura arguido em favor desta opção parece não valer a sangria ao Estado feita através da intervenção da Caixa Geral de Depósitos. Por outro lado, também nunca foi explicada de forma clara a relação do Presidente Cavaco Silva com os seus "amigos", pessoais e políticos, em particular a permuta do terreno onde construiu a casa de férias na Quinta da Coelha, avaliado pelo mesmo valor da casa de Montechoro, ficando assim isento de impostos - um negócio que, avaliado à luz do mercado imobiliário, tem todos os ingredientes para fazer inveja a qualquer outro português. Mais uma vez, apesar das várias tentativas, e das perguntas que endereçámos ao Presidente, não houve respostas. Este trabalho jornalístico que começamos hoje a publicar coincide com o arranque de uma segunda comissão de inquérito, que vai da nacionalização à reprivatização (a venda ao BIC), sem esquecer o passado e as conclusões do anterior inquérito parlamentar. Do que se trata é de facultar aos leitores o máximo de informação possível sobre este caso, para que todos possam formar a sua opinião. Para isso, recorremos a inúmeras conversas, à consulta de milhares de documentos, num trabalho que levou meses a ser executado. A discussão política é importante. Mas o verdadeiramente fundamental é que, em qualquer circunstância, se apure no plano judicial tudo aquilo que houver para apurar. Não é tolerável que na sociedade portuguesa continue a fazer caminho a perigosa ideia de que a justiça é cega perante os poderosos. As evidências deste caso são muitas. Os cidadãos não deixarão de estar atentos quer à coragem dos políticos quer à vontade dos investigadores. Até custa ler este tipo de noticias vergonhosas para a Nação! http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fshar.es%2F2HxMp&h=LAQHKTH5JAQEeDJ_uarMHwa7GzjOFSKbAxorhrXr7msPR9w E vem Cavaco Silva pedir aos Portugueses para ajudarem a limpar o bom nome de Portugal, quando os amigos deles são os que o sujaram mais, e continuam a envergonhar, perante a mais vil impunidade de que gozam, neste país injusto e miserávelmente des-governado. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.pt%2Finicio%2Feconomia%2Finterior.aspx%3Fcontent_id%3D2447021&h=TAQErca3TAQE--PmIi6kLvGY7OJTN9o1XrYHk0vr0WtdSJw Que descaramento e falta de principios morais e éticos de um PR do país! Querem mais descréito para a nação, que este ? Esperam o quê deste País assim des-governado e corrupto até à medula ?? The Nazis hatched plans for a “Fourth Reich” by planting sleeper cells in post-war Europe to destabilise governments, secret MI5 files show. The interrogation of a French collaborator revealed he had attended a conference near Munich in mid-April 1945, a few weeks before the end of the Second World War, presided over by an SS officer in full uniform in which the plans were discussed. The agent, Olivier Mordrelle, was caught and interrogated in Italy three months later, and a report produced for MI5 that was marked “top secret,” describing his reliability as “good.” The meeting, in a district called Deisenhofen, included 15 representatives from countries to the West of Germany, including Italy, and they were apparently told about a “great plan of promoting post-war unrest.” In the report, released by the National Archives, Mordrelle told his interrogators: “The speaker then proceeded to relate how ample funds had already been planted in South America, mainly in the Argentine, and would become available for financing agents in due course. “In order to have ‘bankers’ who could distribute this money, certain trustworthy key men had already been sent to live in Spain and Switzerland.” The agents were to lie low for a “certain period after the end of the war in Europe” and at a given time were to start organising “national movements” which would be “thoroughly in keeping with the traditions of each country but which would all preach anti-Bolshevism and stir up unrest culminating in civil war.” “If the cult of anti-Bolshevism were not particularly popular, then any other sore point, such as the burden of supporting an army of occupation or of having to cede territory might be seized on,” Mordrelle told his interrogators. The main purpose, he said, was “to make the Allies’ post-war task as hard as possible so that the Nazi party could, in time, reappear in a suitable disguise and build up a fourth Reich.” The cardinal rule was that no movement was to make any mention of its pro-Nazi sentiments or to indulge in anti-Semitic propaganda. “Each movement should also strive to create different slogans, methods of approach to the public, initiation ceremonies, ranks, etc, in order to lessen the risk of the affinity between movements being suspected,” the report said. “Clandestine cooperation between movements in different countries was not envisaged, at least at the beginning.” The Nazis apparently planned a three-layered organisation that included a “shutzgemeinschaft” outside Europe that would direct “high policy”, second layer that would make policy and a first layer that carried out “moral propaganda work” for the various movements. Mordrelle was told to head to Spain and contact a French agent at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. http://revoltatotalglobal.blogspot.com/ The file added: “Source states that this last meeting had a strange air of unreality. He had the feeling that last minute plans were being made in words and on paper when all the persons present were secretly reoccupied with the idea of how they could best save their skins.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/world-war-2/8424749/MI5-files-Nazis-planned-Fourth-Reich-in-post-war-Europe.html http://ptesoterico.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/mi5-files-nazis-planned-fourth-reich-in-post-war-europe/ Mordrelle had performed a number of roles for the occupiers, culminating in being appointed French representative for post-war activities by the Nazi party’s intelligence agency, the Sicherheitsdienst. He was also said to have had contact with nationalist movements in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall. The agent was described as 45, 5ft 7ins tall, and 145lbs, with greying hair and glasses, he was said to have a pale complexion, a moustache and false teeth. He was said to be a former architect who designed warehouses and reinforced concrete garages for Renault and then for a firm specialising in theatre acoustics. He had served as a lieutenant in the French army but fled to Germany in 1939, believing that the “Germans would conquer the West completely and that in any case they would have the most understanding for his [separatist] aims.” Mordrelle was sentenced to death by the French military authorities in May 1940 for continued political activity in connection with the separatist movement and for failure to report for military service. He was said to have been involved with the IRA and described how a man called “Scarface,” thought to be Dr Hermann Goertz, parachuted into Ireland in 1940, but was caught because he failed to destroy his German uniform. His family was paid 5,000 Francs a month by the German secret service the Abwehr throughout the war and Mordrelle was seeking to “vanish from French sight in order to escape the death sentence or a term of imprisonment.” The report added: “It is concluded, however, that the French authorities are best able to deal with him.” Com ativos totais de EUA $ 15,6 bilhões, o Banco Espírito Santo e Comercial de Lisboa SA é uma das maiores de Portugal, mais rentáveis bancos comerciais. A história desta venerável instituição financeira - cujo nome significa "Espírito Santo" - está intimamente ligado ao passado volátil Portugal político e econômico. Em 1992, após 16 anos sob posse do governo, o banco foi reprivatizada por um grupo de investidores institucionais liderado por descendentes da família fundadora do Espírito Santo. Em meados da década de 1990, a família realizou-Espírito Santo Financial Holding SA possuía uma participação de controlo no Banco Espírito Santo (BESCL). Embora sediada em Luxemburgo, Espírito Santo Financial Holding é tecnicamente a empresa-mãe, as duas entidades são muitas vezes referidos de forma intercambiável. Outros importantes investidores institucionais incluídos Caisse Nationale de France do Crédit Agricole e The Chase Manhattan Bank Clientes AC. O Governo Português manteve uma participação no Espírito Santo através da década de 1990 também. Embora as atividades BESCL estão concentrados em seu país de origem, ele também tem escritórios em doze países em todo o mundo. Roster da empresa de serviços inclui cartões de crédito, corretagem de ações, gestão de activos e de leasing. Além de suas operações bancárias comerciais, BESCL também controla empresa de seguros de Portugal terceira maior, a Companhia de Seguros Tranquilidade Vida, SA, e administra seis fundos de investimento portugueses. A odisséia do banqu Espírito Santo família começou durante o século 19, quando o patriarca José Maria de Espírito Santo Silva estabelecido Beirão, Pinto, Silva & Co., um banco na capital nacional de Lisboa. A família mudou o nome da instituição para o Espírito Santo Silva e Cia. Banco em 1918. Embora as duas primeiras décadas do século 20 foram um período de convulsão política grande, durante o qual Portugal hesitante deslocado via revolução de uma forma monárquica de governo para um regime republicano, o período entre as duas Guerras Mundiais foi um dramático crescimento de Portugal setor bancário. O filho mais velho José Maria, também chamado José, liderada Espírito Santo até 1931, quando ele foi expulso do país católico para começar um divórcio. Mais jovem José, irmão de Ricardo desafiou a depressão global dos anos 1930 para construir um império bancário europeu. Ele encontrou um apoiador dispostos em António de Oliveira Salazar, o primeiro-ministro que fundou o "Estado Novo" (Estado Novo) em 1933. Sua ditadura durou mais de quatro décadas, tornando-se no mais prolífico governo autoritário da Europa. Salazar atuou como ministro das finanças de Portugal nos anos de 1920 e tinha desempenhado um papel importante na estabilização das finanças do país. O Espírito Santos expandiu-se para o seguro com a compra da Tranquilidade durante os anos 1930. Em 1937, o Banco Espírito Santo fundiu-se com o 62-year-old Banco Comercial de Lisboa, renomeando a nova entida de Banco Espírito Santo e Comercial de Lisboa. Estratégias de Salazar fomentou o crescimento do Espírito Santo durante e após a Segunda Guerra Mundial. Neutralidade de Portugal durante a guerra tornou um refúgio para os ricos da Europa e do pós-guerra protecionismo impedia a concorrência estrangeira. Tênue de Salazar sobre as colónias africanas de Portugal, facilitou a aquisição Espírito Santo família de açúcar grande, café e as plantações de dendezeiros em Moçambique e Angola. A década de 1960 trouxe um "boom" verdadeiro ao que tinha sido, historicamente, a nação mais pobre da Europa ocidental, como o crescimento económico aumentaram a uma taxa anual entre 5 por cento e 7 por cento. Ao início dos anos 1970, a empresa privada, US $ 2 bilhões de ativos do Banco Espírito Santo tornou-se no maior banco de Portugal, e a sua subsidiária Tranquilidade era uma companhia de seguros do país de topo. A fortuna da família foi estimado em 4000 milhões dólares em seu cume. No entanto, quando Salazar sofreu um ataque cardíaco debilitante em 1968, seu sucessor, Marcelo Caetano, foi incapaz de manter o Estado Novo juntos. Em 1974, a pressão das guerras coloniais e profunda recessão económica precipitou um golpe militar. Embora o novo regime, o Movimento das Forças Armadas (Movimento das Forças Armadas, ou MFA), instituiu o que foi caracterizado como "uma forma moderada da democracia", suas inclinações comunistas levou à nacionalização das maiores empresas de Portugal. No começo do ano, Chief Executive Officer Manuel Ricardo Espírito Santo foi preso em uma reunião do conselho do banco de diretores e condenado a uma pena de prisão de 14 meses. Atingida mas erecta, o Espírito Santo família fugiu para a Espanha, então se estabeleceu em Londres. A família teve seu povoamento escasso do governo e fundou ES International Holding SA no Luxemburgo, com US $ 20.000. Eles compraram uma participação importante na Biscayne Florida Bank (rebatizado mais tarde Espírito Santo Bank of Florida) em 1978 e ganhou uma licença bancária brasileira no final da década. Eles começaram a reafirmar o nome de família bem conhecida em 1983 com a criação do Banco Espírito Santo International Ltd., nas Ilhas Cayman. Eles também compraram participações em bancos em Londres e Paris, e criou uma empresa de gestão de fundos, em Lausanne, na Suíça. Em 1990, eles haviam acumulado um empreendimento de US $ 246 milhões. Entretanto, a eleição 1985 de livre mercado do social-democrata Aníbal Cavaco Silva anunciou uma era de reprivatização. Quando o novo regime começou a reprivatize instituições financeiras e companhias de seguros em 1986, o Espírito Santo não perdeu tempo em entrar novamente seu país de origem. Nesse mesmo ano, Espírito Santo Financial Holding formado um banco comercial, o Banco Internacional de Crédito, como uma joint venture com o Credit Agricole da França. Espírito Santo usou os recursos de uma flutuação de recompra de Eurobonds Tranquilidade em 1990. A família readquiriu Banco Espírito Santo com a ajuda da Caisse Nationale de France do Crédit Agricole e The Chase Manhattan Bank Clientes AC. Enquanto a nacionalização havia enfraquecido alguns dos concorrentes BESCL, o Espírito Santo foi muito bem gerida durante todo o período da propriedade estatal. Em 1993, Espírito Santo funcionário Manuel Villas-Boas disse que Euromoney "Em grande medida, o banco manteve as filosofias de crédito e os sistemas aplicados antes do período de nacionalização. O banco teve sorte na escolha da gestão que teve na nacionalização, e o banco teve um balanço forte e bem, desde quando teve que voltar. " Isso não significava que não havia espaço para melhorias, no entanto. Por exemplo, lista BESCL do empregado havia crescido em 70 por cento durante o período de nacionalização. Liderados pelo presidente Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva Salgado, a família focada na reestruturação do grupo e aumentar a eficiência. Eles contratou consultores bem conhecidos de gestão da McKinsey and Company para ajudar com a reorganização. A nova equipa de gestão aumentou drasticamente a produtividade, reduzindo os níveis de pessoal de 6.800 em 1990 para 5.700 em 1994 e, simultaneamente, aumentar o número de ramos 177-332. A proporção dos custos administrativos de activos financeiros decresceram quase 18 por cento e do número de trabalhadores por ramo diminuiu 27-17 no processo. Ativos por empregado dobrou de 1991 a Esc. 400 milhões em 1994. Em 1993, BESCL aumentou sua eficiência tecnológica com um EUA $ 12,8 milhões para atualizar suas redes de computador Unisys Corp O banco também mudou seu foco estratégico de clientes corporativos para os clientes particulares que provaram leais fregueses durante o exílio. Banco comercial do Espírito Santo, Banco Internacional de Crédito, procurou aumentar a sua quota de negócios de Portugal de hipoteca para 10 por cento até meados dos anos 1980. Em 1992, o grupo financeiro acrescentou uma instituição espanhola, Banco Industrial del Mediterraneo, à sua crescente lista de empresas, a um preço estimado de 5,5 bilhões de pesetas (EUA $ 55 milhões). A empresa é cada vez mais diversos interesses - que incluiu leasing, bancos de investimento e cartões de crédito, até meados da década de 1990 - permitiu a venda cruzada de produtos e serviços. Um banqueiro de Lisboa não identificado disse Euromoney que "Espírito Santo representa o dinheiro velho em Portugal. Seu banco é o último dos antigos bancos comerciais que manteve o seu poder." Este factor de reconhecimento do nome ajudou a transmitir "uma imagem de solidez e conservadorismo." BESCL continuou a alimentar essa reputação no início de 1990, utilizando uma política de crédito conservadora e manter uma carteira de empréstimos altamente diversificada. Essa cautela ganhou Espírito Santo a mais alta classificação de crédito internacional dado a um banco Português. Essas avaliações fortes, por sua vez, permitiu BESCL com sucesso flutuar 76,9 milhões dólares de suas ações na forma de American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) na Bolsa de Nova York em 1993. James R. Kraus de ADRs American Banker definido como "recibos negociáveis que são mantidos em custódia no exterior e são negociadas em dólares." Em 1993, a Euromoney observou que "o maior desafio Espírito Santo é a de adaptar o estilo e organização de um banco que existia quando Portugal era uma pequena economia rural em um ajuste para um ambiente de crescimento industrial e internacional". Merrill Lynch mercado analista Sasha Serafimovski concordou, dizendo à revista Dinheiro, em 1995, que "Portugal é um dos mercados bancários e de rápido crescimento mais rentável da Europa." Depois BESCL viu uma média de cinco anos o crescimento dos lucros anual de 21,6 por cento de 1989 a 1994, Serafimovski previu que o crescimento Espírito do lucro anual diminuiria um pouco, para 15 por cento, nos anos que antecederam a virada do século 21, mas prevê um 60 por cento aumento no preço do grupo financeiro da ação até o final de 1995. Na verdade, os desafios enfrentados Banco Espírito Santo e Comercial de Lisboa, em meados da década de 1990 parecia escasso na pior das hipóteses, em comparação com os obstáculos que já tinham cumprido e superado. No final de 1995, Kraus relatado no American Banker Espírito Santo que havia entrado em negociações com Chemical Banking Corp para a compra do Banco Chemical (Portugal) SA Se concluída, a transação seria expandir dramaticamente Espírito Santo em US $ 300 bilhões (ativo), o banco 75.000-empregado . Principais subsidiárias: MULTIGER - Sociedade de Compra, Venda e Administração de Propriedades, SA (89,55%); BESSA - Banco Espírito Santo SA (Espanha); Bescleasing - Sociedade de Locaç AO Financeira Mobiliária SA (72,02%); ESAF - Espírito Santo Activos Financeiros SGPS, SA (65%); Factoring Euroges SA (98,5%); ESER - Sociedade Financeira de corretagem, SA (57%); Crediflash - Sociedade Financeira Aquisições parágrafo um Crédito, SA (75%); Esger - Empresas de Servicos e Consultoria SA (81,8% ); ESGP - Espírito Santo Gest AO de Patrimónios SA (64%); ESEGUR; BESNAC - Banco Espírito Santo norte-americano Capital Corp; ESOL - Espírito Santo Overseas Ltd. (Cayman Islands); Krediges - Sociedade de Servicos SA (50%); Banco Essi SA (34,42%); Europ Assistance - Companhia Portuguesa de Seguros de Assistência SA (23%); Vendal (28,81%); Pextrafil (21,77%); SPGM - Sociedade de Investimentos SA ( 21,77%); Centralcontrol SGPS (25%); Banco Inter-Unido (49,85%); ESAF Espírito Santo Fundo de Pensões (45,01%). With total assets of US$15.6 billion, Banco Espírito Santo e Comercial de Lisboa S.A. is one of Portugal's largest, most profitable commercial banks. The history of this venerable financial institution--whose name means "Holy Spirit"--is closely linked to Portugal's volatile political and economic past. In 1992, after 16 years under government ownership, the bank was reprivatized by a group of institutional investors led by descendants of the founding Espírito Santo family. By the mid-1990s, the family-held Espírito Santo Financial Holding S.A. owned a controlling interest in Banco Espírito Santo (BESCL). While L uxembourg-based Espírito Santo Financial Holding is technically the parent company, the two entities are often referred to interchangeably. Other significant institutional investors included France's Caisse Nationale de Crédit Agricole and The Chase Manhattan Bank Clients AC. The Portuguese government retained a stake in Espírito Santo through the early 1990s as well. While BESCL's activities are concentrated in its home country, it also has offices in twelve other countries around the world. The company's roster of services includes credit cards, stock brokerage, asset management, and leasing. In addition to its commercial banking operations, BESCL also controls Portugal's third-largest insurance company, Companhia de Seguros Tranquilidade Vida, S.A., and manages six Portuguese mutual funds. The Espírito Santo family's banking odyssey began during the late 19th century, when patriarch José Maria de Espírito Santo Silva established Beirao, Pinto, Silva and Co., a bank in the national capital of Lisbon. The family changed the institution's name to Espírito Santo Silva and Banco Co. in 1918. Although the first two decades of the 20th century were a period of great political upheaval, during which time Portugal haltingly shifted via revolution from a monarchical form of government to a republican regime, the period between the two World Wars was one of dramatic growth in Portugal's banking industry. José Maria's eldest son, also named José, led Espírito Santo until 1931, when he was expelled from the Catholic country for getting a divorce. José's younger brother Ricardo defied the global depression of the 1930s to build a European banking empire. He found a willing supporter in António de Oliveira Salazar, the prime minister who founded the "Estado Novo" (New State) in 1933. His virtual dictatorship endured over four decades, becoming Europe's most prolific authoritarian government. Salazar had acted as Portugal's finance minister in the late 1920s and had played an important role in the stabilization of the country's finances. The Espírito Santos expanded into insurance with the purchase of Tranquilidade during the early 1930s. In 1937, Banco Espírito Santo merged with the 62-year-old Banco Comercial de Lisboa, renaming the new entity Banco Espírito Santo e Comercial de Lisboa. Salazar's strategies fostered Espírito Santo's growth during and after the Second World War. Portugal's neutrality during the war made it a haven for the wealthy of Europe, and postwar protectionism precluded foreign competition. Salazar's tenuous hold on Portugal's African colonies facilitated the Espírito Santo family's acquisition of major sugar, coffee, and palm oil plantations in Mozambique and Angola. The 1960s brought a veritable "boom" to what had historically been western Europe's poorest nation, as economic growth surged at an annual rate between 5 percent and 7 percent. By the early 1970s, the privately held, $2 billion-asset Banco Espírito Santo had become Portugal's largest bank, and its Tranquilidade subsidiary was the country's top insurance company. The family fortune was estimated to total $4 billion at its summit. However, when Salazar suffered a debilitating heart attack in 1968, his successor, Marcelo Caetano, was unable to hold the Estado Novo together. By 1974, the pressure of colonial wars and deep economic recession precipitated a bloodless military coup. Although the new regime, the Movimento das Forças Armadas (Armed Forces Movement, or MFA), instituted what has been characterized as "a moderate form of democracy," its communist leanings led to the nationalization of Portugal's biggest companies. Early that year, Chief Executive Officer Manuel Ricardo Espírito Santo was arrested at a meeting of the bank's board of directors and condemned to a 14-month prison sentence. Battered but unbowed, the Espírito Santo family fled to Spain, then settled in London. The family took its meager settlement from the government and founded E.S. International Holding S.A. in Luxembourg with $20,000. They purchased a major stake in Florida's Biscayne Bank (later renamed Espírito Santo Bank of Florida) in 1978 and won a Brazilian banking license late in the decade. They began to reassert the well-recognized family name in 1983 with the creation of Bank Espírito Santo International Ltd. in the Cayman Islands. They also purchased equity in banks in London and Paris, and established a fund management company in Lausanne, Switzerland. By 1990, they had accumulated a $246 million enterprise. In the meantime, the 1985 election of free-market Social Democrat Anibal Cavaco Silva heralded an era of reprivatization. When the new regime began to reprivatize financial institutions and insurance companies in 1986, Espírito Santo wasted no time in reentering its home country. That same year, Espírito Santo Financial Holding formed a commercial bank, Banco Internacional de Credito, as a joint venture with France's Credit Agricole. Espírito Santo used the proceeds of a Eurobond floatation to repurchase Tranquilidade in 1990. The family reacquired Banco Espírito Santo with the help of France's Caisse Nationale de Crédit Agricole and The Chase Manhattan Bank Clients AC. While nationalization had weakened some of BESCL's competitors, Espírito Santo was fairly well managed throughout the period of state ownership. In 1993, Espírito Santo official Manuel Villas-Boas told Euromoney that "To a large degree the bank kept to the philosophies of credit and the systems implemented before the period of nationalization. The bank was fortunate in the choice of management it had under nationalization, and the bank had a strong and well provided balance sheet when we took it back." That didn't mean that there was no room for improvement, however. For example, BESCL's employee roster had grown by 70 percent during the period of nationalization. Led by Chairman Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva Salgado, the family focused on restructuring the group and increasing efficiency. They called upon well-known management consultants McKinsey and Company to assist with the reorganization. The new management team increased productivity dramatically by reducing staffing levels from 6,800 in 1990 to 5,700 by 1994, while simultaneously increasing the number of branches from 177 to 332. The ratio of administrative costs to financial assets decreased by almost 18 percent and the number of employees per branch declined from 27 to 17 in the process. Assets per employee doubled from 1991 to Esc 400 million in 1994. In 1993, BESCL boosted its technological efficiency with a US$12.8 million computer network upgrade from Unisys Corp. The bank also shifted its strategic focus from corporate clients to the private customers, who had proven loyal patrons during the exile. Espírito Santo's commercial bank, Banco Internacional de Credito, sought to increase its share of Portugal's mortgage business to ten percent by the mid-1980s. In 1992, the financial group added a Spanish institution, Banco Industrial del Mediterraneo, to its growing roster of businesses, at an estimated price tag of 5.5 billion pesetas (US$55 million). The company's increasingly diverse interests--which included leasing, investment banking, and credit cards by the mid-1990s--allowed for cross-selling of products and services. An unidentified Lisbon banker told Euromoney that "Espírito Santo represents old money in Portugal. Their bank is the last of the old commercial banks that has retained its power." That name recognition factor helped impart "an image of solidity and conservatism." BESCL continued to nurture that reputation inn the early 1990s, employing a conservative lending policy and maintaining a highly diversified loan portfolio. That caution earned Espírito Santo the highest international credit rating given to a Portuguese bank. These strong appraisals, in turn, enabled BESCL to successfully float $76.9 million of its shares as American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993. James R. Kraus of American Banker defined ADRs as "negotiable receipts that are held in custody overseas and are traded in dollars." In 1993, Euromoney noted that "Espírito Santo's biggest challenge is to adapt the style and organization of a bank which existed when Portugal was a small rural economy into one fit for a growing industrial and international environment." Merrill Lynch market analyst Sasha Serafimovski agreed, telling Money magazine in 1995 that "Portugal is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable banking markets in Europe." After BESCL saw a five-year average annual earnings growth of 21.6 percent from 1989 to 1994, Serafimovski predicted that Espírito's annual earnings growth would slow somewhat, to 15 percent, in the years leading up to the turn of the 21st century, but forecast a 60 percent increase in the financial group's share price by the end of 1995. Indeed, the challenges facing Banco Espírito Santo e Comercial de Lisboa in the mid-1990s seemed meager at worst, in comparison with the hurdles it had already met and surmounted. Late in 1995, Kraus reported in American Banker that Espírito Santo had entered negotiations with Chemical Banking Corp. to purchase Banco Chemical (Portugal) S.A. If completed, the transaction would dramatically expand Espírito Santo into a $300 billion(asset), 75,000-employee bank. Principal Subsidiaries: MULTIGER--Sociedade de Compra, Venda e Administraç a. de Propriedades, S.A. (89.55%); BESSA--Banco Espírito Santo S.A. (Spain); Bescleasing--Sociedade de Locaç ao Financeira Mobiliária S.A. (72.02%); ESAF--Espírito Santo Activos Financeiros SGPS, S.A. (65%); Euroges Factoring S.A. (98.5%); ESER--Sociedade Financeira de Corretagem, S.A. (57%); Crediflash--Sociedade Financeira para Aquisições a Crédito, S.A. (75%); Esger--Empresas de Servicos e Consultoria S.A. (81.8%); ESGP--Espírito Santo Gest ao de Patrimónios S.A. (64%); Esegur; BESNAC--Banco Espírito Santo North American Capital Corp.; ESOL--Espírito Santo Overseas Ltd. (Cayman Islands); Krediges--Sociedade de Servicos S.A. (50%); Banco Essi S.A. (34.42%); Europ Assistance--Companhia Portuguesa de Seguros de Assistencia S.A. (23%); Vendal (28.81%); Pextrafil (21.77%); SPGM- Sociedade de Investimentos S.A. (21.77%); Centralcontrol SGPS (25%); Banco Inter-Unido 49.85%); ESAF Espírito Santo Fundo de Pensoes (45.01%). Clique aqui para editar . |
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ARTICLE 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
nformation and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
~The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, in Paris.
The concepts expressed in this document are protected by the basic human right to freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court as applying to the Internet content on June 26, 1997.
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
nformation and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
~The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, in Paris.
The concepts expressed in this document are protected by the basic human right to freedom of speech, as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court as applying to the Internet content on June 26, 1997.
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.