LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's Banco BPI (LS:BBPI) is no longer in the race to buy Novo Banco after the country's central bank picked five out of seven potential bidders last week, BPI said.
Novo Banco is the successor to Banco Espirito Santo (BES) after a state rescue last year. The state hopes to sell Novo Banco by the summer to recover 4.9 billion euros injected into BES, which collapsed under the debts linked to its founding family.
BPI said in a statement it had been notified by the Bank of Portugal that its proposal had not been selected for the third phase of the Novo Banco sale process.
The central bank on Friday trimmed the list of bidders who had made non-binding offers to five and said it would accept binding offers until the end of June. It did not name the bidders.
Sources and local media have said Spain's Santander (MC:SAN), Chinese group Fosun International (HK:0656), privately owned Chinese insurer Anbang, U.S. investment fund Apollo Global Management (N:APO) and possibly New York-based investment firm Cerberus Capital Management were still in the race.
The Chinese companies have been tipped as strong favourites after a wave of acquisitions in Portugal by Chinese firms in the last few years.