Novo Banco

Novo Banco is a Portuguese bank introduced on 4 August 2014 by the Bank of Portugal to rescue assets and liabilities of Banco Espírito Santo (BES). BES was the second largest private financial institution in Portugal in terms of net assets, as well as one of the oldest and most reputed Portuguese banks.The rescue of Banco Espirito Santo came after weeks of increasingly bad news about the financial state of the lender, particularly its exposure to a cascade of companies headed by its founding Espirito Santo family headed by Ricardo Salgado. BES was to be split into a "good bank", renamed Novo Banco, and a "bad bank", which will house BES's exposures to the troubled Espirito Santo business empire as well as its Angolan subsidiary BESA. Novo Banco was recapitalised to the tune of 4.9 billion euros by a special bank Resolution Fund. The Portuguese state lends the fund 4.4 billion euros. The bank had a board for the 2014-2017 mandate presided by Vítor Bento.A month and a half after he started up his duties, Vítor Bento abandoned the leadership of Novo Banco and was replaced in September 2014 by Eduardo Stock da Cunha.The Resolution Fund is the bank’s only shareholder until a sale transaction takes place. This fund is a structure created in 2012 with contributions from Portuguese banks and from the financial sector, and its operations are audited by the Portuguese regulator Banco de Portugal.Novo Banco incorporates every staff, branch, deposits, credit customers and holders of senior bonds of Banco Espírito Santo.