With a record investment, France further strengthens its position in Portugal

It is quite simply "the largest banking acquisition in the eurozone in ten years," reported Jornal Económico on June 20th regarding the acquisition of three-quarters of the capital of the Portuguese bank Novo Banco by the French group BPCE, parent company of the Banques Populaires and Caisses d'Epargne. The amount of the transaction – €6.4 billion, the largest investment made to date by France in Portugal – will allow it to seriously "strengthen its position," writes the weekly.

In his columns, the CEO of the BPCE group, Nicolas Namias , explains the outlines of this cross-border project:

“Portugal has a favorable economic environment that encourages innovation and provides a secure framework for investors […]. We intend to become a key partner for the Portuguese economy, particularly for its small and medium-sized enterprises and families.”

Lacking a retail banking network in Portugal, the group will not be able to rely on cost synergies. “We are instead looking for revenue synergies, leveraging BPCE's extensive experience,” its boss explains to Jornal Económico, which is taking the opportunity to publish a report on French investments in Portugal in its week's edition.

With the acquisition of Novo Banco, Portugal's fourth-largest bank, France is expected to regain its second place next year (which the United Kingdom took away during a period of political instability in Paris) in the ranking of foreign countries investing the most in Portugal, behind Spain. France's foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in Portugal currently stands at €16.6 billion (8.2% of total FDI), according to data from the first quarter of 2025.

France, whose companies have some 1,200 Portuguese subsidiaries (due to low production costs and favorable tax regimes), is, on the other hand, the largest foreign employer in Portugal, with 104,000 employees. Thirty-eight of the 40 French companies listed on the CAC 40 are present there, such as BNP Paribas, which employs 1,800 people in Lisbon.

The weekly also points out that, since Emmanuel Macron's visit to Portugal last February, the Air France-KLM group (of which the French government is the largest shareholder with a 28% stake) has been pushing to acquire a stake in TAP, whose privatization process has resumed. The Portuguese government intends to sell 49% of the national airline.