Financially affected Grupo Espírito Santo bondholders have managed at last to meet some of the directors of Novo Banco but left with no deal, just an agreement to keep talking.
The group of customers who feel that BES staff misled them into investing in Grupo Espírito Santo company bonds are owed over €500 million and have been seeking recompense from Novo Banco, the new entity created to take over the nice parts of BES when it went under last August.
Representatives of the bondholders said they did not receive any formal proposal at the meeting with Novo Banco, although there was a commitment to 'start negotiations.'
The president of the association representing the customers, Ricardo Ângelo, told reporters after the hour and a half meeting, that it had been just a start of a process and a big step forward.
Stock da Cunha, the new chief executive of Novo Banco, often has stated that these debts are nothing to do with Novo Banco and to pay them off would damage the bank’s capital position at a time when he is charged with selling the bank to the highest bidder.
Ângelo met Novo Banco directors, but not Stock da Cunha, and said the reception "was friendly, more so than I had expected," adding that now at least "there is an opening to solve the problem of these customers."
Ângelo also asked the directors to make money available to those of his association members who were suffering liquidity problems as a result of losing their investments.
He also reported that Novo Banco had "too many problems within the bank to resolve this issue, but all is not forgotten."
Regarding an earlier, complicated proposal by Novo Banco for association members to pile in with more money in return for a payback of some of their money over ten years, Ângelo said this was viewed by his members as not feasible, “We want compensation of our savings in total, we do not want shares in Novio Banco. We do not want the taxpayers' money, we want our money."
Ricardo Ângelo accused the Bank of Portugal as being the main obstacle to finding a solution with Novo Banco.
How the directors of Novo Banco managed to get him to agree that they were too busy, that the Bank of Portugal is at fault and that the scheme they had proposed was too complex to be of any use, are questions that Ângelo's members should now be asking him.
Ângelo added that Novo Banco has tried in every way to create a favourable solution for customers, but unfortunately these solutions have been cancelled by the Bank of Portugal.
"It seems that the Novo Banco presents the proposals and they come back," concluded the head of the association whose hour and a half at the top table has shown his inability to negotiate and his ability to be turned from a campaigner into a sympathiser.
Novo Banco's management will want to string this process out for as long as possible so the Novo Banco sale can go ahead and the problem becomes one for the new owner.
By getting Ricardo Ângelo to agree that the bankers are awfully busy and that the Bank of Portugal is the real problem here, they have made a good start.
