Sul fronte BCP invece....
LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - Portugal's second-largest listed bank Millennium BCP sees a window of opportunity to raise capital that would allow the lender to accelerate a key part of its restructuring plan, chief executive Nuno Amado told Reuters on Friday.
The bank, bailed out with 3 billion euros ($4.09 billion) of convertible bonds in 2012, had promised to fully repay the state by early 2017 and sell off key assets, including its Romanian business and a fund manager, by the end of 2015.
In an interview almost five weeks after Portugal exited its EU/IMF bailout programme, Amado outlined his bank's hopes of outperforming the restructuring plan agreed when Portugal was in the midst of its deepest recession since the 1970s and banks were facing hefty losses from bad loans.
The 56-year-old confirmed BCP is considering a capital hike to help it to repay the state loans faster, but rejected media reports that the bank has decided to raise 2 billion euros.
"We know that there is a window (to raise money), the fact that there is a window doesn't mean that we go through the window," he said. "We are doing a review to see if there is a better alternative than the current plan (which does not involve raising capital)."
Amado said the bank would make a decision before August, but would not comment on the size of any capital raising beyond saying that it would not be small and that the bank does not envisage repaying all of the outstanding 2.6 billion euros government loan this year.
BCP's had a core Tier 1 capital ratio - a key measure of capital strength - of 12.2 percent at the end of March. Portugal's largest listed bank, Banco Espirito Santo had a lower ratio but recently raised 1.045 billion euros. The third largest listed player, BPI, had a higher ratio than BCP's.
GETTING THERE FASTER
Amado said his bank had accelerated the sale of its Romanian business, where it has 477 million euros of loans, and could close it later this year, ahead of an end-2015 deadline agreed with the European Commission.
"We have identified potential bidders ... it is already at an advanced stage," Amado said of the Romanian process. "Until it is completed we don't know if it will complete or not."
The bank also hopes to sell its Portuguese asset management business later this year, ahead of an end-2015 deadline.
BCP's loan book shrank 0.6 percent to just under 59.4 billion euros in the three months to March 31, mirroring a contraction seen across the Portuguese sector as a sluggish economy depresses loan demand.
Amado said a new lending programme from the European Central Bank could help. The ECB announced on June 5 that it would lend 400 billion euros at ultra low rates for up to four years to help banks lend into the real economy.
"We are waiting for the details of what are the SMEs (small businesses), what are the type of products, what is the type of collateral calculation, the haircut we will have," he said.
If the bank gets clarity on this, the new ECB money could make it easier for BCP to make longer-term loans to businesses, since the four-year term BCP would be borrowing from the ECB at would make it easier to offer medium-term loans to businesses.
"The TLRTO is important, it will allow me to make this matching (of longer lending with longer borrowing) and obviously will put the pressure on the reduction of interest rate," he said.
