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In statements to Jornal Economico, the Associação Mutualista Montepio Geral, owner of Banco Montepio, reacted to the news, advanced by Expresso, that a merger between its bank and BCP could be underway.
“Banco Montepio has capital solutions tailored to your needs and will find its own stabilization path. Due to the matrix and the mutual values that frame and sustain Banco Montepio’s activity, a merger of this nature would correspond to its erroneous characterization, something that conflicts with the interests of the Associação Mutualista Montepio and its associates ”, says the institution Virgílio Lima directs.
The Association, which has just over 600 thousand members, recalls that Banco Montepio “is an integral part of the Montepio Group as a whole, either because it constitutes the Associação Mutualista’s distribution network, or because its capital is the savings of the associates, either because it is a service provider of the Associação Mutualista, or even because its clients are essentially members. Therefore, the Bank assumes a high strategic relevance for the Association, becoming an asset whose value in use is much higher than the market value, ”says Associação Mutualista official source.
The size of the assets of the banking subgroup corresponds to 87% of the consolidated balance sheet of Mutualista Montepio.
Expresso announced this weekend that the president of the bank, Miguel Maya, expressed his willingness (to join Banco Montepio) in a meeting with the Minister of Finance, following the concern of the Government and the financial sector about Banco Montepio, which recently presented a strong restructuring plan to the Bank of Portugal. However, in various forums, Miguel Maya has already denied saying that “we have not established any contact with the Ministry of Finance on the Montepio issue nor are we analyzing any operation with Montepio,” said the bank’s general director.
According to the president of the BCP, the bank’s strategy involves “organic growth” but he did not refuse to study the merger with Banco Montepio or other operations that “seem to justify a rigorous analysis.” For now, Miguel Maya reinforces that “protecting the bank’s balance is the absolute priority.”
The Mutual Association will meet next Wednesday 30, in an Extraordinary General Meeting, at 8:00 p.m., with two points on the agenda. Namely: “deliberate, in the terms of article 65, no. 6 of the Company Bylaws, on the proposed modification of the Benefits Regulation”; and “resolve on the Report and Consolidated Accounts, as well as on the Opinion of the Fiscal Council, referring to the year 2019”.
The bank has to downsize to increase the efficiency ratio
The resizing of Banco Montepio came to the fore when the Restructuring Plan was released, which was delivered to the supervisor and is already in the hands of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.
Banco Montepio will deliver the transformation plan to workers on October 6 and expects to leave between 600 and 900 people.
The plan, which is a cost reduction plan, foresees a readjustment of personnel. In that sense, Banco Montepio says that it will launch “a program designed to create opportunities for employees who want to leave.”
“Based on the analyzed scenarios and in this multi-year framework, an indicative maximum range of reduction of people between 600 to 900 is estimated, for which the competent entities were requested [MTSSS] the possibility of expanding the unemployment benefit quota, with the aim of providing greater protection in situations of sick leave, a fact that has already been shared with the representative structures of the workers “, says an internal statement, signed by the president and CEO of the bank, and which was made public last week.
Departures of workers due to early retirement and termination by mutual agreement are foreseen, as well as the relocation of workers who intend to remain in the bank.
operational readjustment ”, which will accelerate the bank’s digital transition. For this reason, and in order to “optimize the distribution mix”, the bank has already decided to close 37 branches that it considers “geographically redundant”, and “around 40 branches are still being analyzed, according to criteria of geographic relevance, profitability and market dimensions ”.
The objective of the transformation plan is to make Banco Montepio an “efficient” and “profitable” bank. “In this way, we intend to adjust our operating and customer service model, bring Banco Montepio’s efficiency ratios closer to those of the Portuguese banking sector, simplify the group’s structure and rationalize the offer.”
In June, it had a ratio cost-income 75.5%, when the average of the banking sector in the first semester was 58.7%.
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