Lisbon, April 30, 2026 (Lusa) - The CEO of BPCE, which completed Novo Banco’s acquisition for €6.7 billion on Thursday, has said that the French group maintains a long-term commitment to Portugal.
“We are delighted and proud to welcome Novo Banco to BPCE and to reinforce our long-term commitment to Portugal,” said Frenchman Nicolas Namias, quoted in the statement.
The sale of Novo Banco was completed on Thursday to the French banking group BPCE for €6.7 billion, higher than the amount announced in June 2025.
At the time, BPCE CEO Nicolas Namias met with the bank’s staff and said the group’s investment in Portugal would be long-term, unlike Lone Star’s, according to Lusa.
In the statement released on Thursday, BPCE said that with the acquisition of Portugal’s fourth-largest bank, the country became “the group’s second domestic market for its retail banking activities”.
The BPCE, which is the second-largest banking group in France and the fourth-largest in the Eurozone, described the deal as the largest cross-border banking acquisition in the Eurozone for over a decade, saying that its objective was to support the bank's development from a long-term perspective and to bolster its capacity to finance Portugal’s economy, serving households, businesses, and institutional clients.
Novo Banco was established on 3 August 2014, owned by the Resolution Fund (a public body used to resolve failing financial institutions without resorting to taxpayer bailouts), to take over part of the banking business of the historic Banco Espírito Santo (BES), which was subject to a resolution measure.
Upon its creation, the authorities announced that the aim was to privatise the bank as soon as possible, but this did not occur until 2017.
A majority stake in Novo Banco (75%) was sold to the US fund Lone Star, which paid no purchase price but invested €1 billion in Novo Banco to recapitalise it.
Lone Star aimed to make the bank profitable quickly so that it could be sold at a profit in the medium term, which happened on Thursday.
With Novo Banco’s sale, Lone Star will receive around €5 billion, in addition to the dividends already received.
Portugal's state (which until Thursday held a 25% stake) will receive €1.673 billion; when added to the dividends already received, this allows the state to recover almost €2 billion of the funds invested in the bank.
According to Lusa's calculations, the resolution of BES has cost the public coffers around €8 billion (mainly due to the initial capitalisation of Novo Banco and the Resolution Fund recapitalisations).
IM/MYAL // ADB.
Lusa
