António Pedro Santos / Lusa
Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, Minister of State and Finance
Miranda Sarmento is not adept at the possible purchase of Novo Banco by CaixaBank, who already owns another bank in Portugal, BPI.
O CaixaBank, owner of BPI, can advance to the buy do New bank, thus increasing its presence in Portugal. The Spaniards have already hired Deloitte to evaluate the purchase of Novobanco.
But Joaquim Miranda Sarmento It does not seem to be a big fan of this possibility: “The decision is up to Lone Star with 75%. And it will be a market solution,” he says.
But the Minister of Finance warns: “In any case, the Spanish bank already represents just over a third of the Portuguese banking market And I believe that, for the sake of concentration and dependence, This market share should not rise”.
In other words, Miranda Sarmento was clear: “It was good for the Portuguese market that the Spanish presencewith which we have nothing against, not increased ”.
The Finance Minister believes that There should be no excessive concentration of Portuguese banks from a single country.
In relation to a possible advance of the Box General of Deposits for Purchase Novo Banco, Miranda Sarmento said that the public bank should “analyze market conditions and understand that it can make a proposal alone or in conjunction with another bank, will have to make a proposal to the shareholder and the shareholder will comment on a concrete proposal”.
In the same interview with, Miranda Sarmento revealed that the government – contrary to the forecasts of the European Commission – continues trusting no growth the economy above 2% in 2025; and in a surplus in 2026.
“[A estimativa de 2,4%] It is not discarded, but it is more demanding. In any case, the numbers we have point to growth above 2% with all the uncertainty that exists, recession in the US, very high tariffs, that is, several factors of uncertainty, ”he added.
