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Portugal

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Recent developments in privatisations

Pedro Bizarro and José Pedro Fazenda Martins
Vieira de Almeida & Associados
Lisbon

The agreement of a Financial Assistance Program to Portugal sponsored by the IMF, the EU and the ECB triggered an ambitious plan of privatisations, with expected proceeds of €4 billion in 2012 and €1 billion in 2013. The state's holdings in the national power grid (REN) and in the most important power supplier (EDP) were already privatised, and some other important companies are in the pipeline for the end of 2012 and 2013 (inter alia TAP, the main air carrier, ANA, the airport and infrastructure company and CTT, the postal company).

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Banking and finance

Banking

Capital markets

Project finance

CONTEXT AND TRENDS
Portugal seems to have been on the brink of ruin on several occasions in the last few years. Frequently thrown in with the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) the country has had to fend off questions and concerns about not only the scale of its sovereign debt but also how it intends to bring the volume down....

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Mergers and acquisitions

CONTEXT AND TRENDS
With liquidity low and the domestic market not exactly in rude health, M&A practitioners have been looking to two sources fro potential work: privatisation and expansive foreign markets. In the former, there is optimism from firms about a potential sale of assets by the Portuguese state as it attempts to reduce its sizeable debt burden....

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Restructuring and insolvency

CONTEXT AND TRENDS
The big change in Portugal in the last year has been the amendments made to the Insolvency and Corporate Recovery Code (CIRE). The Government's alterations are designed to encourage more restructuring and recovery of companies as opposed to the prevalence of bankruptcy and liquidation strategies that was seen before....

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See also

Portugal
Western Europe

Legislation guide

Recent developments in privatisations

Practice areas

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