The Chinese group Fosun Industrial Holdings Limited has submitted a firm offer to purchase a 16.7 percent stake of the share capital of Banco Comercial Português (BCP), the banking institution indicated in a statement to the market released on Saturday.

This entry into BCP’s share capital will be implemented through a capital increase reserved for the Chinese group, which also informed that it intends to increase its stake by means of operations in the secondary market or future capital increases so that it can eventually hold from 20 to 30 percent of the banking institution.

The offer put forward by the Fosun Industrial Holdings Limited group, which in Portugal already holds Fidelidade (insurance) and Luz Saúde (health), nevertheless depends on meeting several conditions.

Besides approval by the Portuguese and European supervisors, the group also presented as conditions the carrying out of a reverse stock split, that the share subscription price for the reserved capital increase be no more than 0.02 euros per unit and the approval of co-optation of at least two new members it appoints to the board of directors, among others.

The group also wants guarantees regarding future contributions BCP will have to make to the Resolution Fund, demanding no extraordinary contributions which might be requested to cover eventual losses from the sale of Novo Banco, and that future regular contributions to the Resolution Fund be already included in the accounts.

On Friday BCP announced losses of 197.3 million euros in the first half of the year, following on profits of 240.7 million euros in the same period of 2015, due to increased credit impairments and other non-recurring items.

Impairments associated to credit granted (up 463.7 million euros to 618.7 million euros) were among the factors that most affected the half-year’s accounts, albeit banking income also fell 22.6 percent to 1.06 billion euros due to less proceeds from financial operations. (Macauhub/CN/PT)