Hong Kong’s King Wai (KWG) group has acquired an 80.1% stake in Portuguese bank Banco Internacional de Negócios (Europa), a digital banking platform, the South China Morning Post reported recently.

The newspaper wrote that the deal had a dual purpose, which was to follow mainland China’s interest in deepening the economic and trade relationship with Portuguese-speaking countries and to help Hong Kong residents wishing to move to Europe due to ongoing security concerns in the city.

The group, which did not disclose the cost of this purchase, last October received authorisation from the European Central Bank to acquire an 80% stake in BNI (Europe), which has assets of €500 million and operates in 13 European countries, including Germany and the United Kingdom.

Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso reported last May that BNI (Europe), of the Angolan group Banco de Negócios Internacional, had recorded “historical” losses, thus requiring more capital, which would be guaranteed by the Hong Kong group.

“The authorisation process for the acquisition of a qualified shareholding of Banco BNI Europa’s capital stock is in the final stages of consideration by the Bank of Portugal and the European Central Bank, and is expected to be completed by the end of June 2019,” said the 2018 report and accounts of BNI Europa, in which the Angolan BNI has a share of 92.988%.

The process of disposal of most of the Angolan bank’s stake in the Portuguese bank (80.1% was for sale, according to BNI’s report and accounts) began in 2017. (Macauhub)