Argonautica

Professional investors can review published thought leadership and market updates from the Argonaut Investment Team.

1 post found for July 2014

‘The Father (of debt), the Son (of liabilities) and the Holy Spirit: O Pai (de divida), o Filho (de passivo) e do Espirito Santo’

Banco Espirito Santo (BES) has historically been controlled by the eponymous and historically influential Portuguese family through a leveraged and complex shareholding structure of holding companies. The company with direct ownership of BES (aka “the bank”) equity, the Espirito Financial Group (ESFG - Portugal) currently owns 20% (down from 27% a few months ago).1 However, stripping out minority shareholdings in the holding companies, the underlying economic ownership of the Espirito family in the…