Jornal de Negócios reported this week that BPI had decided to suspend the sale of the 48.1 percent stake it holds in Banco de Fomento Angola (BFA) and for which Gemcorp and the Carrinho group had already submitted a bid.
According to Negócios, BPI justified the decision with the continuous depreciation of the kwanza.
"Yes, we were interested in buying BPI's shares in BFA and we were surprised that the process was suspended, we hope that this process will move forward again in the future", said Atanas Bostandjiev, in an interview with Lusa, guaranteeing that they remain "very interested".
"We are one of the biggest private investors in Angola, in the last eight to nine years, and we are interested in increasing our presence in the country and contributing to the local economy in several sectors, industrial and financial", he added.
The chairman of Gemcorp, which also has a small stake of 1.9 percent in Millennium Atlântico bank, noted that the British fund manager is interested in investing more in the financial sector.
"It's frustrating, but it's a normal procedure, for a transaction to take place there has to be a buyer and a seller available", he underlined, stating that he believes that the opportunity will arise again.
"And maybe it's even more advantageous than it was before," he pointed out.
The Portuguese bank, Spanish owned CaixaBank, had defined the amount of 411 million euros as the minimum amount to sell this asset.
BFA is majority controlled (51.9 percent) by Unitel, the Angolan telecommunications operator which in turn belongs to Sonangol.
In this sale process, BPI had set the month of July as the deadline for the two candidates to present final binding bids for the purchase of 48.1 percent of BFA.
On the other hand, the Angolan State is also interested in selling its 51.9 percent stake in BFA through a share sale on the stock exchange.
