Lisbon, Portugal, 5 Aug – The Portuguese government is to sell its 49 percent stake in Angolan company Sociedade Mineira de Lucapa, the Público newspaper reported Tuesday, quoting Carlos Pina, the secretary of state for Treasury and Finance.

The stake is held by the Sociedade Portuguesa de Empreendimentos (SPE) which is 81 percent controlled by the Portuguese state, and the remaining 51 percent is held by Angolan state-owned Ediama.

The secretary of State also told the newspaper that “in strategic terms it makes no sense to keep the stake which is why the decision was taken to sell it.”

SPE’s stake in Sociedade Mineira de Lucapa is practically the company’s only asset, which in recent years has been stripped of all its assets in Portugal, including its head office, which means that the sale of this stake, inherited from the former Diamang, signals the end of its mining activity and probably its dissolution.

The Público said that SPE posted both net and operational losses over the last two years, and in 2008 posted a net loss of 1.4 million Euros and an operational loss of 1 million Euros. (macauhub)