Novo Banco boss gets 16% pay rise despite €1.4 billion loss

Despite record write-offs, covered by Portugal’s Resolution Fund and the Treasury, the head of Novo Banco received a 16% increases in his salary in 2018.

António Ramalho’s salary rose to €382,000 last year, according to the annual report and accounts published this Friday.

Ramalho was the highest paid director, followed by Luísa Matos (€259,000), Vítor Fernandes and Jorge Cardoso (€258,800 each) and José Eduardo Bettencourt (€252,500), Rui Fontes (€251,200) and Luís Ribeiro (€76,500) as he worked part of the year from September.

The chairman of the supervisory board, Byron Haynes, received €375,000, a 400% increase over 2017. The vice-president, Karl-Gerhard Eick, received €250,000.

The bank’s report stressed that, “with regard to Management and Supervisory Bodies no bonus amounts were paid or attributed in 2018.”

In 2018, Novo Banco reported losses of €1.412 billion and has requested financial compensation of €1.150 million from the Resolution Fund under the ‘contingent capital mechanism’ put forward by the Bank of Portugal and agreed by the Government when 75% of the institution was sold to the US vulture fund, Lone Star.