BAI: The Regimes Banking Laundromat
In recent years, the Angolan financial market has been led by Banco Africano de Investimentos – BAI (African Investment Bank), a banking institution previously named Banco Angolano de Investimentos (Angolan Investment Bank). To a certain extent, the shareholding structure of the bank reflects its success as well as the institutionalization of public assets’ transfer to public officials, for their illicit enrichment. Praised at US $8 billion, BAI currently holds a portfolio of deposits and credits estimated, by the Angolan National Bank, at US $10.4 billion and US $3.2 billion, respectively. At its inception, in 1996, Sonangol was BAI’s main investor, with 18.5 percent of its shares. Over the years, Sonangol quietly transferred 10 percent of its shares to the private ownership of high-ranking officials, besides the ones who, from the start, already owned considerable shares of the banks stock. By way of illustration, the table below shows only the list […]
Read more