Portugal said on Wednesday that German private equity fund Mutaris will buy its 71.7 percent stake in loss-making electrical equipment maker Avasec, owned and nationalized by Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos, in 2020.
Economy Minister Antonio Costa Silva, who announced Mutarres as the winning bidder, did not disclose financial details but said that “the state will be able to recoup much, if not all, of the investment” he made in Avasec.
State-owned holding company Parapublica said in April that private equity funds Motaris and Oaktree (US) and Oxy Capital (Portugal), as well as a consortium owned by Portuguese conglomerate Visabera and auto supplier Sodesia, had proposed binding bids.
“The proposal (from Mutaris) has been thoroughly analyzed,” Silva told reporters. “It guarantees the continuity of Efacec, preserving the workforce and reducing the burden on the state.”
The Portuguese state financially supported Efacec with about €217m ($232m), including €132m in cash injections to keep the company in business, and the rest in public guarantees for outstanding loans.
Silva said the deal should be finalized within the “next two months” if all hurdles under EU state aid rules are removed.
Portugal acquired a majority stake in Efacec Power Solutions, which manufactures and installs electrical components, in July 2020 after Ms. dos Santos, daughter of late Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, became a suspect in a fraud investigation in Angola and that his bank accounts in Angola were seized. Portugal.
Dos Santos, which bought its stake in Efacec in 2015 for around €200m, through offshore company Winterfell 2 Ltd., has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and its lawyers have defined the allegations against it as part of a “political conspiracy”.
The government said Efacec, which employs more than 2,300 people in Portugal, is important to the country, mainly because of its innovative engineering projects, particularly in the areas of energy and electric mobility.
The last time Efacec disclosed its accounts publicly was in 2020, when it reported a loss of €73.4m and had total debts at the time of more than €180m. ($1 = €0.9341) (Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Written by Inti Landoro and Alexander Smith)
