WHEN BANCO ESPÍRITO Santo (BES), the banking unit of Portugal’s Espírito Santo Financial Group (ESFG), announced on May 18 that it expected compound annual growth of 20% a year until 2010, investors saluted its confidence and sent the shares higher – BES’s by 2.23% and ESFG’s by 1.8% – feeling justified in their valuation of the bank at a higher multiple than rivals such as Millennium BCP and Banco BPI.
Yet BES and ESFG – the latter also controls non-life insurance company Tranquilidade and other businesses – have hardly been an overnight success.
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