The relationship gives CGD an excuse to sell the shares pledged by Isabel dos Santos.

The Lisbon Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), authorizing the sale of shares in the Zopt holding company owned by businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, which she pledged for 6.2 million euros.

The decision of the Court of Appeal of Lisbon orders to continue the sale of shares and dividends of the “holding” Zopt (shareholder of NOS), without giving grounds to the judge of Angola in this process, who wanted to sell the goods subject to suspension, have preventive seizure on them.

These are the actions of the CGD that led to the confiscation of 124 million Zopt shares and dividends that belonged to the foreclosed Kento Holding (a company owned by Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos).

However, these pledged shares had already been placed under a preventive seizure in 2020 by Angola, and then the Attorney General of Angola requested in 2022 an enforcement decision from the Judicial Court of the District of Lisbon to suspend the sale of these shares, given that this may cast doubt on the seizure in favor of Angola state, which was accepted by the court.

The CGD filed an appeal and the Lisbon Court of Appeal now considers that a preventive arrest cannot take precedence over an arrest and that Angola’s letter of prevention of execution by sale of assets cannot jeopardize the recognition and classification of loans, so it considers “a requirement that CGD, as a pledgee, may have to wait months or even years until the criminal proceedings under which the shares were seized are completed or the seizure is lifted.”

Had this been done, the report states, CGD would have suffered “harm associated with this delay” and would amount to a violation of its right, as it believes that “there is no legal basis for an order to stay sentence.” preventing CGD from proceeding to enforce its loan.”

Zopt, the owner of the NOS operator, was 50% owned by Sonaecom, with the remaining half owned by Isabel dos Santos companies.

Last year, Sonaecom ceased to be a shareholder of Zopt, which became wholly owned by Unitel International Holdings and Kento Holding Limited (companies controlled by Isabel dos Santos), and a shareholder agreement was settled governing the relationship between Zopt’s shareholders.

Thus, at the end of 2022, Zopt transferred shares representing 26.07% of the authorized capital and NOS voting rights to Sonaecom.

Currently, Sonaecom directly owns 26.07% of the share capital of NOS and Zopt also owns 26% of NOS. Sonae has 10.78% of the operator.