Banco Português de Negócios (, ), or simply BPN, was a Portuguese banking institution. It used to be a private bank, but was nationalized by the Portuguese Government in 2008 after a bad management and malpractice-related debt of 1.800 billion euros and several irregularities uncovered in the institution. In 2012, BPN, stripped of many of its debts and bad loans, was sold to Angola’s Banco BIC for €40 million.Peter Wise (February 4, 2014)
Christie’s pulls Miró auction after Portuguese protests
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''.

History

BPN - Banco Português De Negócios, S.A. was founded in 1993 from the merger of Soserfin and Norcrédito and was based in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

Scandal

Portugal's Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos told a press conference after a special cabinet meeting that the government was to assure deposits in BPN, and that the management of BPN was to be given to the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (Portugal's public bank) under Bank of Portugal's (Banco de Portugal, the Portuguese Central Bank) supervision from November 3, 2008, to prevent a

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chain reaction in Portugal. Portuguese judicial authorities detained the former president of financially troubled BPN. José Oliveira e Costa, who was the CEO of BPN between 1997 and early 2008, was arrested on charges of suspected

tax fraud Tax evasion or tax fraud is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trust (property), trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax au ...

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

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, abuse of credit and illegal gains. In spite of having "a market share of around 2 percent", the case of BPN was particularly serious because of its political implications - Portugal's then current President Aníbal Cavaco Silva and some of his political allies maintained personal and business relationships with the bank and Oliveira e Costa In the grounds of avoiding a potentially serious financial crisis in the Portuguese economy, the Portuguese government decided to give them a bailout, eventually at a future loss to taxpayers. Because of that, the role of

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(BdP) (Portuguese Central Bank) in regulating and supervising the Portuguese banking system, when it was led by Vítor Constâncio from 2000 to 2010, has been the subject of heated argument, particularly whether Vítor Constâncio and the BdP had the means to do something or whether they revealed gross incompetence. In December 2010, Constâncio was appointed vice president of the

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, for an eight-year mandate, being responsible for banking supervision. Shortly after, in April 2011, the Portuguese Government would request international financial assistance as the State itself would be declared insolvent.

Art collection

The bank's art collection, including 85 works by the Catalan artist Joan Miró acquired from a private collection in Japan between 2003 and 2006,Anabela Reis (February 4, 2014)
Portugal’s Sale of Miro Collection Canceled by Christie’s
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''. became state property in 2008 as part of the nationalization.Raphael Minder (February 4, 2014)
Christie’s Cancels Sale of Joan Miro Works Owned by Portugal
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''. In early 2014, the Miró paintings were scheduled to be sold by its then-owner, Portuguese state holding company Parvalorem, at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

in London. They had never been displayed publicly in the country. The most notable works included ''La Fornarina (After Raphael)'' (1929), with an estimated value of £2 million - £3 million, and ''Femmes et Oiseaux'', which was expected to fetch £4 million - £8 million. Portugal hoped to earn at least $50 million from the sale. A group of opposition lawmakers appealed to Portugal’s public prosecutor to stop the sale. Lisbon’s administrative court, however, ruled that the sale had not been decided on directly by the government of Prime Minister

Pedro Passos Coelho Pedro Manuel Mamede Passos Coelho (; born 24 July 1964) is a Portuguese people, Portuguese politician and university guest lecturer who was the List of prime ministers of Portugal, 117th prime minister of Portugal, in office from 2011 to 201 ...

and that Parvalorem had not breached any administrative rule. Socialist and communist deputies also raised the issue in parliament, but their bid to prevent the planned sale was outvoted by the ruling centre-right coalition. Still,

withdraw the works from saleA sale of Joan Miro artwork is cancelled amid a legal dispute
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'', February 4, 2014. only hours before the auction was scheduled to start, citing "legal uncertainties created by this ongoing dispute".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banco Portugues de Negocios Banks established in 1993 Banks disestablished in 2012 Portuguese companies established in 1993 2012 disestablishments in Portugal 1993 mergers and acquisitions 2012 mergers and acquisitions Defunct banks of Portugal