Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and head of state energy giant Sonangol |
By Victoria Waldersee,
LISBON Portugal
The Bank of Portugal is evaluating Angolan
billionaire businesswoman Isabel dos Santos’ suitability as a shareholder of
Portuguese banks, it told Reuters on Thursday, after an Angolan court ordered
that her assets in the country be frozen earlier this week.
A
Luandan court document dated Dec. 23 ordered an asset freeze of the personal
bank accounts of dos Santos, her husband Sindika Dokolo and Mario da Silva in
Angola as well as stakes they hold in nine Angolan firms after the government
accused them of causing the state losses of over $1 billion.
Dos
Santos and her husband have denied the allegations, calling them “politically
motivated”. Da Silva, chairman of Banco de Fomento Angola (BFA), has not
publicly commented.
Dos
Santos holds significant stakes in several important Portuguese firms,
including a 42.5% stake in Eurobic bank and shares in Telecoms Company NOS, and
engineering company Efacec.
She is
also a stakeholder in oil and gas company Galp Energia, whose largest
shareholder Amorim Group is partly owned by a holding company jointly
controlled by Angolan state oil company Sonangol and a firm called Exem Energy,
of which dos Santos, Dokolo and da Silva are beneficiaries.
In an
email to Reuters, the Bank of Portugal said it is “considering all the newly
available information which could be relevant for the evaluation of her
suitability as a shareholder of the institutions we supervise.”
Dos
Santos is not on the board of any entity subject to their supervision but holds
42.5% of Eurobic bank. She does not currently hold shares in any other
Portuguese banks.
Portugal’s
market regulator CMVM also said they are “following the implications of the
court’s decision” in relation to possible consequences for the companies in
which dos Santos holds shares.
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