“I lost 100,000 euros in commercial paper, my lifetime savings that I kept for my retirement and to be able to help my children,” António Maneiras, a 76-year-old pensioner who had come across the River Tagus from Seixal for the protest, told Lusa.
Maneiras recalled the day when he decided to buy the debt: “My BES manager contacted me, she knew that I had sold shares and had the money available, she offered me five percent interest and assured me she wouldn’t put my money at risk.”
It is, he said, only from the newspapers that he has gleaned some information about what is happening with BES, since the bank supplies no information at all about who will get their money back or when.
Most of the people who took part in the demonstration were over 50 and had come from northern Portugal.
By late morning, the gathering numbered about a dozen people, but they were awaiting two coaches full of people from Porto that they said were carrying more people who had bought commercial paper from BES.
BES was taken over by the Bank of Portugal on 3 August after it announced first-half losses of €3.6 billion, largely due to exposure to other group companies. The bank was split into two: the so-called ‘bad bank’, to contain the toxic assets, and an institution to take over the ongoing business, named Novo Banco or ‘New Bank’.