Bradesco ups Stake in Espirito Santo

Brazil’s Banco Bradesco says it has spent BRL296m to up its stake in Portugal’s Banco Espirito Santo to 6.05%. The shares were acquired on the open market via purchases at the Lisbon stock exchange, says the company in a statement. “The operation focuses on meeting the interests of the Bradesco Organization and Espirito Santo Group to extend relations,” says the statement. In other words, the goal of the purchase is to align the interests of the two banks and deepen the two institutions’ relationship. The statement does not say how much Bradesco owned prior to its most recent purchase. Espirito Santo’s budding Americas investment banking arm BES Investimento, is staffed with former WestLB executives seeking to do project finance business in the US and LatAm.