The Institute for the Management of State Assets and Participations (IGAPE), which is in charge of the Privatization Program (Propriv), which runs until 2026, held a meeting with journalists this Thursday, but did not clarify these issues.
Propriv still contains 63 assets to be privatized, of which 31 are scheduled for this year and the rest until 2026, said João Sionguele, from IGAPE's Department of Privatization and Company Restructuring.
Among those planned for this year, he highlighted the IU and Ika hotel chain (previously owned by businessman Carlos São Vicente, who is serving a prison sentence after being convicted of embezzlement, tax fraud and money laundering) and those that will be sold on the stock exchange.
But, for now, the share that the State will sell in these companies considered to be reference, such as Unitel, ENSA and BFA, in which the State has a majority stake of 51.9 percent, through Unitel, the rest of which is BPI, belongs to the Spanish Caixa Bank, whose executive president recently told Reuters he had no interest in maintaining his stake in the Angolan bank.
Companies linked to the media, such as TV Zimbo and the Medianova group, which were handed over as part of the recovery of assets diverted from the public treasury, should also leave the state sphere.
"We are studying the best model, we cannot continue on the path of the State owning all television channels, so we are studying mechanisms on how to materialize privatization and taking into account the milestones established by the press law", said João Sionguele, without giving any dates.
According to presidential decree 78/23, of March 28, 2023, which extended Propriv for another three years, TV Zimbo and Medianova, a group that owns a daily newspaper and a radio, should begin privatization in 2024, and should be sold through public tender.
In the case of ENSA, João Sionguele said that the strategy is still being finalized, taking into account the specificity of the sale process via the stock exchange, with the percentage not being previously defined.
Also in the case of Unitel, the percentage that the State wants to dispose of is not known in detail, and "reflections on what the perimeter will be" are still ongoing.
As for BFA, the State intends to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO), he reaffirmed, adding that "attention is also being paid" to the Spanish shareholder.
"There is interaction [with CaixaBank] in order to guarantee the success" of the operation, said the head of IGAPE, highlighting that the stock exchange process will have to be approved at a general meeting.
Of the total of 103 assets privatized since 2019, 70 percent of the contracted value, which exceeds one billion kwanzas, corresponds to foreign companies, including 11 Portuguese and 71 national entities.
Among these, according to the head of IGAPE's Legal and Exchange Department, Ulica Bravante, there are 69 assets in the productive sector, of which 34 are already operational.
