It was the last day of the week, a Friday, when lawyer João Magalhães Ramalho met in Geneva with the now vice president of Pictet Bank, the Swiss financial institution known for discreetly managing large fortunes. In addition to the lawyer, who was at the PLMJ at the time, and the head of Pictet, Ramon Sarda, there was also the civil servant Jurg Egli, who would receive the former BPP president, João Rendeiro, about a month later. It was January 9, 2009. In Portugal, the direction of the BPP had been in the hands of a provisional administration appointed by the Bank of Portugal for about a month and a half, and concern about the future of the bank had even come out on the street. . with several depositors to talk to, having seen their accounts frozen and fearing losing the investment of a lifetime. But the lawyer had one goal: to get Rendeiro’s fortune stored there to be placed in a tax haven and protected by a confidence (corporate vehicle used to protect assets, managed by an administrator on behalf of third parties).
At that meeting —according to the minutes that appear in the documentation now delivered by the Swiss authorities to the judge of the Central Court of Criminal Investigation (TCIC) Carlos Alexandre, in response to a rogatory commission sent eleven years ago— the lawyer began by explaining that the BPP faced serious liquidity problems. These difficulties, according to João Ramalho, were the result of several investments made on behalf of clients, based on management mandates in the structures of Private capital (a type of closed-end investment fund, that is, not listed, that invests capital —generally obtained from private or institutional investors— directly in companies with growth potential in the medium and long term, with the aim of making a future sale profitable).
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Source: Observadora
