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Overview

China Development Bank provides a $300 million USD loan to Banco Espiritu Santo for general corporate purposes

Commitments (Constant USD, 2023)$340,949,144
Commitment Year•2011Country of Activity•PortugalDirect Recipient Country of Incorporation•PortugalSector•Banking And Financial ServicesFlow Type•Loan

Status

Project lifecycle

Pipeline: Commitment

Pipeline: PledgePipeline: CommitmentImplementationCompletion

Timeline

Key dates

Commitment date
Sep 30, 2011
Last repayment (originally scheduled)
Sep 29, 2014

Stakeholders

Organizations involved in projects and activities supported by financial and in-kind transfers from Chinese government and state-owned entities

Ultimate beneficial owners

At least 25% host country ownership

Funding agencies

State-owned Policy Banks

  • China Development Bank (CDB)

Receiving agencies

Private Sector

  • Banco Espírito Santo, S.A. (BES)

Loan description

China Development Bank provides a $300 million USD loan to Banco Espiritu Santo for general corporate purposes

Interest type•UnknownMaturity•3 years

Narrative

Full Description

Project narrative

On September 30, 2011, China Development Bank (CDB) signed a $300 million credit facility agreement with Portuguese bank Banco Espiritu Santo (BES) for general corporate purposes. The borrowing terms included a maturity of three years.

Staff comments

1. Banco Espírito Santo (BES) was a Portuguese bank based in Lisbon that on August 4, 2014 was split int two banks: Novo Banco, which kept its healthy operations, and a "bad bank" to keep its toxic assets. It once was the second-largest listed Portuguese bank and the ninth-largest contributor to the PSI-20 index. BES was the second-largest private financial institution in Portugal in terms of net assets (€80,700 million in March 2011), with an average market share of 20.3% in Portugal and 2.1 million clients. On August 3, 2014, Banco de Portugal, Portugal's central bank, announced a €4.4 billion bailout of BES that heralded the end of BES as a private bank. The bailout was funded by the Portuguese Resolution Fund (Portuguese: Fundo de Resolução). The bank was split into a healthy bank, Novo Banco, while the toxic assets remained in the existing bank until its liquidation in July 2016.