Portugal’s famous dental tycoon made bankrupt for culpable insolvency

Paulo Maló, Portugal’s most internationally famous dentist, has been declared culpably insolvent by a court after a case filed by the bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos.

It means that he is prohibited from exercising any kind of management role for six years after losing his dental implants and reconstruction business on October 6, 2021 when it was sold to a fund.
The court decreed the personal insolvency of Paulo Maló at the request of CGD which for several years had unsuccessfully tried to recover a debt of over €8 million from the famous dentist who owned the Maló Clinics.
At the time, the court stated that the entrepreneur, who was nicknamed the ‘millionaire dentist’, had admitted that he did not have “property or revenues” to pay the loans back to the State-owned bank.
The official receiver stated on March 23, 2021, that Paulo Maló did not have seizable assets and that his last declared income in October, 2019 was €29,042,11.
A week after he had been declared bankrupt, Paulo Maló admitted that he maintained a wealthy lifestyle.
“I have a base salary that enables me to live without problems”, he told the business daily Negócios.
The receiver informed the court that Paulo Maló was frequently in the media advertising his work, had not hid the fact that he had income, and admitting that he had a service provision contract with Prosperity Towers.
And clarified: “the insolvent had income that could be seized since the beginning of 2022, but was only handed over from January, 2023.