CTT admits to Banco CTT spin-off
Portugal’s CTT group is looking at several possibilities to reduce its exposure to Banco CTT. One of the possibilities on the table would be to create a spin-off, eventually listing the bank on the stock exchange.
According to news source ECO, the company is determined to reduce exposure to the bank it founded in 2015, as it realises that it needs more financial muscle to accelerate its growth, while CTT prefers to allocate this capital to its Iberian strategy of express and parcels.
“We are not the ideal shareholder for a bank,” says CTT’s CEO, João Bento, in an interview with ECO magazine in February. “We don’t want to be an obstacle” to growth”, said João Bento.
This message should be reinforced to investors on Capital Markets Day which the company is preparing for this year. The previous one was held in the summer of 2024, and the exact date is still pending the formal conclusion of the deals announced in December, namely, the purchase of Cacesa and a joint venture with DHL in Portugal and Spain.
The CEO of CTT believes that there are still “levers of evaluation of the bank” to be activated by the group itself before moving towards the reduction of its exposure – which, in any case, will also “depend on opportunities”. The first is adapting more shops to provide banking services.
The first is the adaptation of more stores to the provision of banking services. A second aspect is to hire more “native banking” human resources. The third point is the reinforcement of investment in the digital channel.
The manager is convinced that these three aspects will directly boost the bank’s value before moving forward with any decision on its share. Currently, CTT owns more than 91% of Banco CTT after Generali Tranquilidade took an 8.71% stake in exchange for €25 million. This transaction valued Banco CTT at €290 million.
No decision has been made on the level of exposure reduction by the group and, in May, João Bento also admitted the possibility of selling the “entirety” of the bank. “It sounds to me that we should always be a relevant shareholder of the bank”, he now says.