BES Bad-Bank Creditors Have Started Filing Compensation Claims — Resolution Fund Faces a €650 Million Bill Under the No-Creditor-Worse-Off Principle

Twelve years after the resolution that broke Banco Espírito Santo into a good bank and a bad bank, the cheque is finally being totted up on the bad side. ECO reports today that common creditors of the BES estate have begun filing formal compensation claims with the Fundo de Resolução, and that the Banco de Portugal has started the "preparatory work" for an administrative procedure that could see the Fund pay out roughly €650 million.

The Number Behind the €650 Million

The figure traces back to a Deloitte assessment commissioned during the resolution that estimated common creditors of BES would have recovered 31.7% of their claims had the bank gone into ordinary liquidation in August 2014 instead of being resolved. In mid-2025, a Lisbon court fixed common credits in the BES estate at €2.05 billion in a decision that has since become final. Apply the 31.7% recovery rate to that base and the Fund's exposure under the so-called No Creditor Worse-Off (NCWO) test lands at the €650 million mark ECO has reported.

NCWO is the safety valve baked into the EU's Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive. The principle: nobody hit by a resolution can end up worse off than they would have been in liquidation. If they do, the difference is owed.

Who Is Asking

The claim file has filled up quickly. Investment vehicles connected to senior BES bondholders — including Trinity (€130 million in recognised credits, of which €108.3 million classed as common), PIMCO with claims north of €460 million, and BlackRock and CQS — have all formally submitted. Trinity's first request reportedly went in during 2024 and was renewed at the end of 2025 as patience with the Fund's slow timetable wore through. Smaller bondholders and trade creditors number in the thousands.

The Fund has resisted accelerated payment for years, arguing that the NCWO compensation cannot be calculated until the BES liquidation itself is closed — a process the official liquidator has said could take more years yet. The shift signalled in today's reporting is that the Banco de Portugal has begun designing the administrative procedure even before the underlying liquidation finishes, which would unlock partial payments under provisional NCWO numbers.

What This Does to the Fund

The Fundo de Resolução closed 2024 with a deficit above €6.5 billion, the bulk of it accumulated through the Lone Star contingent capital mechanism that paid Novo Banco roughly €3.5 billion across nine drawdowns. That hole is about to be partly filled: the BPCE acquisition of Novo Banco, which entered its closing stretch in March, will inject more than €900 million into the Fund through its 13.56% stake.

A €650 million NCWO payout would absorb most of that windfall in a single pass. The Fund is financed by levies on Portuguese banks and an ultimate Treasury backstop, so the bill, if it arrives in full, gets spread across the sector.

Why It Matters Now

The political timing is delicate. The BdP is led by a new governor, Álvaro Santos Pereira, who has spent his first six months pressing the Portuguese banking sector publicly. The Novo Banco sale is in its closing window. And the European Court of Justice still has the Lufthansa-style state-aid file on Lone Star's contingent payments outstanding in a case that has fed into the wider BES resolution debate. Common creditors filing en masse forces the supervisor to set a number — and once a number exists, the political fight becomes who pays it. For Portugal, the answer is the resolution fund the banks themselves capitalise. For the bondholders who took the original hit in 2014, the answer is finally, after twelve years, partial relief.