Lisbon, March 25, 2026 (Lusa) - The former manager of BES (Banco Espirito Santo, a former Portuguese bank) and chair of the group's investment bank, Jose Maria Ricciardi, died on Tuesday aged 71, a source close to the family told Lusa on Wednesday.
News of José Maria Ricciardi’s death was first reported by the newspaper Eco.
The former BES manager, who also ran for the presidency of the Sporting Clube de Portugal in 2018, died following a long illness.
As the former chair of the investment bank BESI, Ricciardi was one of the members of the Espírito Santo family who challenged and criticised the leadership of his cousin, Ricardo Salgado, even before the collapse of BES.
In 2014, the year the bank collapsed, Ricciardi told a parliamentary inquiry into the Banco Espírito Santo case that Salgado's management was "bad". Salgado was the head of BES at the time and is currently facing legal proceedings.
"There was a progressive lack of credibility among many employees because there were practices that were, at the very least, ethically reprehensible," Ricciardi said at the time, adding that "losses were happening and, instead of being put on the table, they were possibly disguised".
The end of BES occurred on 3 August 2014, when the Bank of Portugal applied a resolution measure to the bank following the discovery of falsified accounts within the group's holdings.
"I was the only person who tried to change the course of things," Ricciardi stressed during his hearing, noting there were two attempts to remove him from his roles within the group.
"There were two attempts to throw me out. First, in November 2013 and then, in June 2014," he told MPs.
In 2015, the then prime minister, Passos Coelho, told the same inquiry that José Maria Ricciardi had informally expressed concern about the bank's and the group's evolution.
"In informal conversations, I remember that José Maria Ricciardi sometimes expressed his discomfort regarding developments in the situation of BES and the group, which were already public knowledge," read the written answers sent by Pedro Passos Coelho to the parliamentary commission.
Ten years later, in 2024, Ricciardi told a court during the group's trial that Ricardo Salgado had asked him to "be in solidarity with the family" regarding the "falsification of accounts".
He revealed a dinner at his cousin's house in June 2014, where he found Salgado's "exaggerated kindness" strange, as the two were no longer on good terms and barely spoke.
PSC/LYT // ADB.
Lusa
