Santander maintains conversations with the Government for eventual agreement on contracts “swap” – the Observer

The chairman of Santander Totta said, this Wednesday, which has held talks with the Government to try to reach an agreement on the contracts ‘swap’ made with public transport companies and remains hopeful on a positive outcome.

"I will Say only that there have been conversations. If we’re going to have or not result it is still early to say," said Vieira Monteiro, at a press conference for the presentation of the results of the bank, in Lisbon.

The manager replied to questions about if you hope of an agreement on the "swap" sold the public transport enterprises, like the one that was reached with regional companies in the Wood, that went through the restructuring of the "swap" in that region and ended up with the lawsuits in progress.

Vieira Monteiro reiterated that "the bank always wanted to make a deal regarding this matter," and stated to reporters: "I Have a certain hope to get there, six years ago that I’m available to make arrangements. Let me have this hope."

"to Have made this agreement with the Wood is a great sign and gives us a hope that one day we will reach also an agreement with the Portuguese State," said the chairman of Santander Totta, who spoke during the presentation of the results of the bank, which obtained a profit of 395,5 million euros in 2016.

at This moment, he explained, are payable to Santander Totta to 1,800 million: 1,300 million euros, to which must add up to the "financial flows that the State has to pay from a certain point in time and that today reach 500 million euros". To these must be added other costs, such as those related to lawsuits.

A contract "swap" (swap) is a derivative instrument, mainly used to cover interest rate variations, and is used by companies to control their financial burdens.

A "swap" is to set an interest rate of a loan with the obligation of a party to pay the difference between the fixed rate and that rate varies according to the reference rates of interest.

The case of the contracts "swap" went public in 2013 and quickly became controversial when it was realized that the State was incurring billions of euros of potential losses due to agreements made between banks and public companies are usually used for protection of the oscillations of the interest rates.

in Addition to the financial costs, the "swap" became a political war, leading to the creation of the parliamentary commission of inquiry, led to the resignations of the rulers and managers of public and have even put in question the place of the then secretary of State of the Treasury (the government-PSD/CDS), Maria Luís Albuquerque.