Wealth Management Boosts Largest Portuguese Bank

Christopher Owen

2 November 2007

Millennium BCP, Portugal's largest listed bank, posted an 8.6 per cent fall in nine-month net profits to €478.3 million ($690 million), due to costs incurred in a failed bid for smaller rival BPI earlier this year, the bank said. But the Private Banking and Asset Management segment posted a 45 per cent increase in net profits in the first nine months of the year, compared with the same period of 2006, contributing €33.4 million to the bank's results over the period. Assets under management grew by only 4.2 per cent, though, to reach €15.766 billion. Millennium BCP said it spent around €65.5 million in its €5.32 billion failed bid for BPI, which last week turned the tables on Millennium by making a proposal to merge the two banks and create Iberia's third largest listed bank. The unsolicited approach involves a share swap of half a BPI share for every Millennium share and values Millennium at about €11 billion, based on BPI's current share price. The merged entity would be called Banco Millennium BPI. Millennium rejected BPI's offer but said it was open to negotiations.