“There is no incompatibility or legal impediment in being a non-executive director because of the fact that I was minister ... and I am an MP,” Albuquerque said in a statement. “Any other reading that may be made of this nomination can only be understood as mere party political exploitation.
“No decision taken by the company in the past was conditioned or influenced by any type of decision that I might have taken,” the statement continues.
Portugal’s Communist Party has said that it will raise the matter in parliament’s ethics sub-committee.
In a statement posted on its official website, Arrow states that Albuquerque is to take up the post of non-executive director from 7 March and that she will be a member of its risk and audit committee.
Its chairman, Jonathan Bloomer, expressed his satisfaction at her appointment, citing her experience in government and at Portugal’s state debt agency, the IGCP.
This, the statement quotes him as saying, “will enrich” the group as it seeks to expand into new geographical areas and types of assets.
Albuquerque remains a member of parliament for the opposition centre-right Social Democratic Party.
In her statement, she stresses that her functions will be “of a strictly non-executive nature” and that Arrow is hiring her “to bring value to the company on matters of the macroeconomic and regulator context at the European level, above all Continental Europe.”
According to a presentation to investors last year, published on the group’s web pages, Arrow manages 5.5 billion in loans in Portugal, of clients that include Banif, Banco Comercial Português, Montepio Geral, Santander Totta, Banco Popular and others. Clients in other sectors include insurers Açoreana and the local unit of AXA, as well as Vodafone Portugal.
Arrow is a purchaser and manager of debt that uses data and analytics to acquire and manage debt portfolios from financial institutions and other credit providers.
Last year it acquired Whitestar from Carval Investors for €48 million, taking over some 300 employees in Portugal. Whitestar, which had been operating in the market since 2007, was once part of Lehman Brothers and then managed by consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, before being sold to Carval in 2014.