Mário Centeno declares investment interests in Portuguese companies

The Governor of the Bank of Portugal and former finance minister Mário Centeno has declared his investment interests in seven Portuguese companies listed on the stock market.

His predecessor, Carlos Costa, did not have declared interests, but Centeno has divulged his interests in SAD do Benfica and Galp Energia among others.
The shareholdings were declared in a Declaration of Interests that the leader of the Bank of Portugal has to present to the European Central Bank (ECB) where he sits on a board which includes all the single currency member states.
Mário Centeno also does not possess a single bank deposit account with over €100,000 in any of the banks supervised directly by the ECB.
The information was published on Monday by newspaper Expresso from the Declaration of Interests signed on 21 September, 2020 and divulged by the Bank of Portugal.
It does not reveal any position the former Eurogroup chairman has at any non-listed companies in Portugal or overseas.
Without referring to the number of shares or amounts invested, the document shows that Mário Centeno has shares in SAD do Benfica, Galp, Pharol, (formerly PT), NOS, REN, Navigator and Martifer.
In his position since July 2020, Centeno, the successor to Carlos Costa, who did not have declared investments in shares, refused to comment on the effect or possible constraints of the shareholdings, such as conflicts of interest they could have on his work as supervisor of Portugal’s financial institutions, neither did he list these investments or others that he had in companies in the financial sector before changing posts.
An official source at the Bank of Portugal simply stated that “all required procedures were fulfilled and the Declaration of Interest published and was the subject of prior investigation and validation by bodies of the Bank of Portugal and ECB competent to deal with matters of ethics and conduct.”