Portuguese Commercial Bank (, BCP) is a Portuguese bank that was founded in 1985 and is the largest private bank in the country. BCP is a member of the Euronext 100 stock index and its current chief executive officer is Miguel Maya Dias Pinheiro. BCP is based in Porto, but its operations are headquartered in Oeiras, Greater Lisbon. It operates a branch brand-dubbed and restyled in 2004 as Millennium BCP as well as Banque BCP and ActivoBank.
It has nearly 4.3 million customers throughout the world and over 695 branches in Portugal. It was ranked at number 1,633 of the world's largest companies in 2023.
History
BCP was founded in 1985 by Jardim Gonçalves and a group of investors from the Porto region.
Since 2004, it operates a branch brand-dubbed and restyled as Millennium BCP, following a process of amalgamating all the brand names and complete incorporation of all commercial structures of the group's retail banking:
Nova Rede (the bank's brand for its own network of retail banking branches since 1989) Crédibanco (network of branches created by the BCP itself in 1993) Banco Português do Atlântico (acquired in 1995 and incorporated in 2000) Banco Mello (acquired in 2000 and incorporated in 2000) Banco Sotto Mayor (acquired in 2000)
Aborted merger with BPI (2007) On 25 October 2007, a smaller Portuguese bank, BPI —Banco Português de Investimento ("Portuguese Investment Bank") offered a merger with BCP. The board of BCP initially refused as long as terms were not be revised. The merger talks failed and the two banks didn't reach an agreement.
Former operations in Canada
Bank of Montreal (BMO) purchased the Canadian division of BCP Bank in the summer of 2007. All branches in Canada remained BCP Bank branches until October 2007, when they became BMO branches. These branches continue to operate as specialty branches to Lusophone communities, including Azorean communities in Toronto, Ontario, except the Dundas Street West and University Avenue branches, which have turned towards the Chinese community.
Capital Consolidation
In 2012, Millennium in the middle of the European sovereign debt crisis, BCP received €3 billion in state support through the issuance of contingent convertible bonds with an interest rate of around 10%.
In 2014, Millennium BCP raised €2.25 billion in fresh capital through a rights issue reserved for shareholders. With the results of that the bank repaid €2.25 billion of the CoCo bonds.
As of 2015, Millennium BCP reported a profit of €235.3 million euros, returning to profits after four years of losses.
In 2017 the bank raised another €1.5 billion through a rights issue for shareholders as well as the direct sale of shares to Chinese conglomerate Fosun International. Immediately after that capital raising, Millennium BCP paid off the remaining €700 million in CoCo bonds, thereby regaining its autonomy from the state and ending any possibility of nationalization through a forced conversion of the bonds. The remaining funds from the rights issue will be used to strengthen the bank's capital ratios. The bank estimates it has contributed more than €1 billion to state coffers since 2012, mainly interest paid on the CoCo bonds.
Millennium BCP also operates in Africa through Millennium bim (Banco Internacional de Moçambique) in Mozambique and Banco Millennium Atlântico in Angola. One BCP branch is open in Macau, representative offices operate in Brazil, Switzerland, China, and the UK. As of 2023, BCP also owns 19% of Banque BCP in France (80% owned by Caisse d'Epargne Île-de-France).
Previously BCP operated in Greece (Τράπεζα Millennium Bank), Romania (sold to OTP Bank), and Turkey (Fibabanka). Banque Privée BCP (Suisse) was sold to Union Bancaire Privée in 2021.
Shareholder structure
As of 30 June 2018, BCP's main shareholders were Fosun International with 27.06%, Sonangol Group with 19.49%, Norges Bank with 2.544%, BlackRock with 3.39%, EDP Energias de Portugal with 2.11%, Credit Suisse with 1.30% and Millennium Management with 0.121%.
As of 31 December 2021, BCP's main shareholders are Fosun International with 29.95%, Sonangol Group with 19.49%, BlackRock with 2.68%, EDP Pension Fund with 2.06%. Portuguese shareholders hold 31.2% of the total shares of the bank.