BCP's share price has underperformed the
European bank sector by 60% since January 1999. What are you
doing to address this problem?
The share price is under pressure. This is partly
due to the economic downturn in Portugal. BCP also has some
exposure to the insurance sector and this is another factor.
During this past year when the share price was depressed, the
key issue was the bank's capital ratios. To some extent this
was a self-fulfilling prophesy because capital was depressing
the share price which in turn put added capital pressure on
the bank.
It is now clear is that through our capital increase and rights
issue, we have addressed and resolved this issue. We wanted to
bring our tier 1 ratio up to the level it stood at in March 2001
and...
