The Fall of Banco Espírito Santo: Holy Spirit or Devil in Disguise?

Abstract

In 2014, after nearly 150 years as one of Portugal's most wealthy and powerful families, the Espirito Santo family completely lost control of its empire, which included Banco Espirito Santo, Portugal's largest bank by market capitalization and second-largest private-sector bank in terms of assets, along with stakes in numerous financial, non-financial, privately held, and publicly traded companies. During the European financial crisis of 2010 to 2014, many of the family's companies required capital investment. To avoid family equity dilution, the family's patriarch, Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva Salgado, engaged in a creative money-go-round structure whereby Banco Espirito Santo would legally raise short-term commercial paper with high interest rates and sell them to third parties that were partially owned by the Espirito Santo family. These third parties then would sell that paper back to the bank's retail clients as safe investments similar to Portuguese deposits. The plan failed, and the house of cards that was the Espirito Santo empire collapsed. Students will consider whether Salgado and the board of Banco Espirito Santo acted appropriately or if they failed their fiduciary duties to the non-family shareholders of the bank.

Citation

Shein, J.B. and Hawbecker, J.P. (2016), "The Fall of Banco Espírito Santo: Holy Spirit or Devil in Disguise?", . https://doi.org/10.1108/case.kellogg.2021.000008