The chairman of Sonae is delighted that at last the truth is coming out about his company’s failed bid for Portugal Telecom which was thwarted by Espírito Santo’s Ricardo Salgado who is alleged to have bribed PT directors to swing the deal his way.
Sonae’s Paulo Azevedo admits satisfaction with the recent revelations in the Operation Marquês investigation and is sitting back "to watch justice take its course."
Azevedo was presenting Sonae’s annual accounts but was unable to resist reacting to the latest news from Operation Marquês, especially the bits involving Sonae's failed attempt to buy Portugal Telecom which, it now seems certain, were scuppered by Salgado paying PT directors Zeinal Bava and Henrique Granadeiro to swing the deal his way.
It’s not the money, according to Azevedo, it is the fact that PT made Sonae’s life difficult for a long time while pretending there was a level playing field when in fact "the game was distorted."
"We were told that the competition was clean and then privately were laughed at," said the Sonae boss.
In 2006, Sonae presented a proposal to buy PT, but the deal was thwarted and in 2007, PT spun off PT Multimédia and proceeded with the sale of its holding in Brazil’s Vivo to Spain’s Telefónica. Part of the revenue from this business was then used to pay the shareholders (among which was Grupo Espírito Santo,) and to invest in Brazil’s Oi, a company that is now in insolvency. The end result was millions for Grupo Espírito Santo and costs and confusion for Sonae.
The former managers of PT, Zeinal Bava and Henrique Granadeiro, are suspects in Operation Marquês, accused of receiving millions from Ricardo Salgado to ensure PT did as he wanted to the benefit of Grupo Espírito Santo.
According to Azevedo, the information on Grupo Espírito Santo’s poor financial state, before its collapse in 2014, was widely known by Portuguese banks and it was only Ricardo Salgado’s influence within the Portuguese business world that delayed the collapse for so long. If Sonae had managed to buy PT, Azevedo said that the inherent weaknesses of Grupo Espírito Santo’s would have been laid bare much earlier.
Azevedo has proved to be a powerful enemy and his testimony in September 2015 swung the prosecutors’ sights to the links between Grupo Espírito Santo, the favourable treatment it received from the José Sócrates government and the money transferred to Carlos Santos Silva, the businessman and friend of Sócrates.
The testimony confirmed to prosecutors that there was a strategic alliance between the Sócrates government and Grupo Espírito Santo led by Ricardo Salgado, a line of inquiry that may well see Ricardo Salgado behind bars, his career in tatters and reputation ruined.
