Parvalorem, the company that manages the toxic assets of the former Portuguese Business Bank (BPN,) has handed out €500,000 to managers last year.
Some of those managers were part of the former team at Banco Português de Negócios under whose management the bank went bust and was bailed out with taxpayers’ funds.
Parvalorem, the state-owned vehicle that manages about €3 billion of BPN’s toxic assets, awarded a €500,000, 2017 bonus to workers with more than 15 years of service.
Among these Parvalorem employees are several former BPN top brass, some of whom are involved in BPN lawsuits and were close to BPN boss, José Oliveira Costa, (pictured above) who was give a 14-year prison sentence and under whose disastrous management, taxpayers were left to pick a tab of €5 billion.
Of the €500,000 paid out, €250,000 went to 10 boards including one where Armando Pinto sits.
Pinto was on the BPN board and now is the director of legal affairs at Parvalorem on a meagre monthly salary of €12,600. Then there’s António José Duarte, the former administrative director of BPN's operations. He once was Oliveira Costa’s right hand man but now struggles by on €6,600-a-month.
There are 68 workers at Parvalorem from the former BPN who have complained they are not being paid enough. Is the appointment of these former BPN staffers and directors a case of 'poacher turned gamakeeper,' or 'jobs for the boys'?
BPN - the scandal so far...
Those responsible for massive fraud and corruption at BPN were sentenced at the end of May 2017: the former BPN boss José Oliveira e Costa receiving a 14 year stretch after a long-running trial.
The bank quickly was sold off to the Angola's Banco BIC in 2011 for just €40 million after the government had thrown an initial €1.8 billion at the problem instead of letting the institution go under.
The cost of the politically convenient bail-out just keeps on rising, as do the running costs of State owned management bodies Parvalorem, Parups and Parparticipadas which were set up to sell the bank’s few remaining assets. Why there are three companies needed to run one collapsed bank has never fully been explained.
BPN was 'nationalised' on November 2nd, 2008, with the bank having suffered a €700 million loss, "from offshore, off-balance-sheet operations," according to the Bank of Portugal which arranged the bailout under its governor, Vítor Constâncio.
When BPN collapsed there was heated argument in Portugal's parliament as MPs said Constâncio had had the means to prevent the BPN collapse and that he did nothing.
After this disastrous performance as head of Portugal's central bank, in December 2010, Constâncio was appointed vice president of the European Central Bank, for an eight-year mandate, being responsible for 'banking supervision', a topic of which he had proven to have little grasp.
The case of BPN was particularly serious because of its size, market share, and the political implications.
Portugal's then President, Cavaco Silva, and some of his political allies, maintained personal and business relationships with the bank and with José Oliveira e Costa.
The result so far: managers at Parvalorem, Parups and Parparticipadas seem to have a job for life, nobody has actually been jailed and the unwitting public has been stiffed to the tune of €3.66 billion – and rising.
With two directors of Parvalorem earning more than the president of Portugal and 13 employees earning more than the Prime Minister, António Costa, the company is well paid nest for those whose activities allowed BPN to trade with such astonishing laxity.
The final report of an audit of Parvalorem, which handles around €3 billion of BPN toxic assets, has been carried out by the General Inspectorate of Finance and passed to parliament.
The Inspectorate has found a culture of high pay and flaws in the "credit portfolio analysis and debt forgiveness," underlining the fact that the company has agreed to accept real estate to cancel higher-value customer debts.
Concerningly, Parvalorem has cancelled €159 million of customer debts, without any justification or documentation.
