The sale of the Herdad da Comporta Real Estate Fund has entered final negotiations with Deloitte now in talks with the Vanguard-Amorim consortium, the only bidder left in the game after management company Gesfimo, botched the process the first time aorund.
A purchase agreement soon should be presented to the shareholders of the Fund with the hope that they will not again reject the sales process for being underhand and 'not transparent', which is what happened last time.
Comporta is said to be 'worth' around €200 million. The latest consortium offered €156 million in the aborted earlier process and an offer for the entire business from a US investment company Armory Merchant Holdings, said to be around USD400 million, has continuously been blocked - to the detriment of shareholders.
The deadline for submission of proposals was September 20th with the two earlier candidates pulling out due to a clause in the second set of rules stating that anyone continuing to participate must sign away their legal rights to sue the management company, Gesfimo, for mismanaging the process.
José Cardoso Botelho of Vanguard and Miguel Guedes de Sousa of Amorim Luxury have not detailed their offer but in the previous bidding, they offered €156 million and also would take on the debts owed to Caixa Geral de Depósitos, now around €110 million.
All José Cardoso Botelho will say is that the second bid is different from first one.
Next, Gesfimo needs to hold a general meeting to allow its shareholders to decide if the sale should go ahead. The major shareholders are the defunct Grupo Espírito Santo property company, Rioforte and US-owned Novo Banco, as well as individual family shareholders.
Amorim Luxury is controlled by Paula Amorim, a daughter of late cork and energy magnate, Américo Amorim.
Since its creation in 1990, Amorim Luxury Group has represented over 100 luxury brands. The Group's mission is "to bring together a full lifestyle offer that pervades every dimension of the customer's lives, in a unique and memorable experience."
The sale of Herdade da Comporta has certainly been a 'unique and memorable experience,' mainly because the various Espírito Santo clan members have not wanted to sell what they believed would the family's summer playground for generations to come.
