Haitong pays €3.4M to state

The Chinese bank Haitong had paid €3.4 million to the Portuguese State to become the sole shareholder in the bank.

This was achieved by buying the rights to convert assets through deferred taxes (Double Taxation Agreement) to the State, paying out around €3.4 million to become the sole shareholder of the former Banco Espírito Santo investment bank BESI which they bought in 2015.
It involves the conversion of more than 500,000 rights regarding DTAs registered by Haitong in 2015 in favour of the State, these being converted into shares after the State’s interest in the bank was sold to Haitong on 6 June.
In a communique sent to the market, the bank states “Haitong International Holdings Ltd, the sole shareholder of the bank, exercises the right of preference over these rights.
In the opposite case, the State would assume a position of around 0.3% in ex-BESI (as was reported by ECO online last month). A similar process had been used for the State to hold a direct stake in Novobanco.
In 2015, the tax authorities (Autoridade Tributária) approved tax credits of €3.08 million, which meant that Haitong had to set up a special reserve of €3.39 million with the Bank of Portugal – an amount that corresponds to the value of the DTA with a 10% surcharge. These tax credits have now expired.
Each of the 526,061 rights were worth €6.44, in other words the Chinese paid €3.38 million to the State to acquire them.
Haitong then proceeded with a capital raise by issuing new shares that resulted from the DTA conversion, at the sum of €2.63 million, to now hold €847.4 million. Each share has the nominal value of €5, below the rights price.
BESI was purchased by the Chinese bank Haitong in 2015 for €380 million, after the winding up resolution applied to BES, in August 2014.