The Angolan authorities – the government and the National Bank of Angola – have approved the merger of bank Banco Millennium Angola with Banco Privado Atlântico. The resulting bank will be the fifth largest Angolan bank by assets, according to Portuguese financial newspaper Diário Económico.

Portugal’s Banco Comercial Portugues (BCP), which controls 50.1 percent of Banco Millennium Angola through BCP Africa, SGPS, announced last year it had reached an agreement with the shareholders of Banco Privado Atlântico (BPA) for a merger with Banco Millennium Angola.

“BCP will strengthen its expansion capacity in Angola through the merger of Banco Millennium Angola with Banco Privado Atlântico, thus enabling them to grow in adverse conditions and simultaneously adapt to the implications of changes to supervision equivalence”, said the statement issued by BCP in October 2015.

Under the memorandum of understanding signed by the two banks, BCP is expected to keep a 20% stake in the future Banco Millennium Atlântico.

The remaining shareholders of Millennium Angola are state oil company Sonangol with 29.9 percent, Banco Privado Atlântico with 15 percent and Globalpactum – Gestão de activos with 5 percent.

Banco Privado Atlântico’s shareholders are Interlagos Equity Partners (47.5 percent), Carlos José Silva (23.2 percent), Jasper Capital Partners (9.5 percent), Banco Millennium Angola (6.7 percent), Quadros – Gestão de Activos (6.5 percent),Equipa de Gestão (3.5 percent) and Geomcorp Fund (3.0 percent). (macauhub/AO/PT)