MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Caixabank will work with the Angolan government to take the African country’s lender BFA public, CEO Gonzalo Gortazar said on Tuesday.
Caixabank holds an indirect stake of 48.1% in BFA via its Portuguese unit Banco BPI, while Angola’s state-owned mobile telecoms firm Unitel holds the remaining 51.9%.
Earlier this year, Gortazar said Caixabank was not interested in maintaining its indirect stake in BFA and would inform local authorities ahead of any divestment decision.
On Tuesday, Gortazar said that an initial public offering was being considered, mainly by the majority shareholder Unitel, adding that “we are happy to accompany (that process) and we will work with the state and with BFA to try to make it possible.”
In August, the Angolan government decided to move forward with an IPO to float 15% of BFA.
BPI CEO Joao Pedro Oliveira e Costa said last month that BPI also aims to sell an equal stake and advisors were being selected for the IPO, which should take place in 2025. BPI has been trying, without success, to sell its stake inBFA since 2017 following the ECB’s recommendation that it reduce its exposure to Angola. In 2023, BPI suspended the sale of its stake in BFA due tothe strong devaluation of Angola’s kwanza currency against the dollar, Portuguese newspaper Negocios reported in July.
(Reporting by Jesús Aguado in Madrid; additional reporting by Sergio Goncalves in Lisbon; editing by Andrei Khalip and Jason Neely)
