BPI will end its three-decade presence in Angola if regulators approve a deal announced on September 3, the bank said. The Portuguese lender agreed to sell its remaining 33.35% stake in Banco de Fomento Angola, BFA, to Congolian Financial SA, a company owned by Angolan conglomerate Grupo Carrinho, for nearly $451 million.
The transaction, which still requires sign-off from Angola’s Central Bank and the Capital Markets Commission, would complete BPI’s long effort to shrink exposure to Angolan assets. BPI first entered Angola in 1996 when it acquired the local operations of Banco de Fomento e Exterior and later created BFA as a separate Angolan bank in July 2002. Over time BPI reduced its control, selling 49.9% to Unitel in 2008 and a further 2% in 2017, and it sold 14.75% through a 2025 listing on Angola’s stock exchange to cut its remaining stake ahead of this deal.
Pressure to pare back Angola exposure dates back to at least 2015, when EU rules classified Angolan credit and debt as higher risk and required full provisioning. The European Central Bank reinforced that push in 2017, citing concerns about local banking supervision and capital requirements. Negotiations with buyers stalled in 2023 after a sharp depreciation of the Angolan kwanza complicated valuation, but BPI persisted and has now found a buyer for the last of its holding.
The buyer, Grupo Carrinho, began as a catering business in 1993 and expanded into one of Angola’s larger agro-industrial groups. The conglomerate already controls 74% of Banco de Comércio e Indústria and about 70% of Banco Keve, and the CFSA purchase would give it a much larger position at one of the country’s biggest banks. For Angolan banking customers and competitors, the deal signals deeper local consolidation of financial-sector ownership.
What happens next depends on regulators. If Angola’s banking and markets authorities approve the sale, BPI will have fully divested from BFA and formally exited the Angolan market after roughly 30 years. The completion will reshape ownership at BFA and expand Grupo Carrinho’s footprint in Angolan banking.
In other corporate moves on the continent, MultiChoice is reshuffling DStv packages and channels from September 17. The company will discontinue the Compact Plus tier and rebrand Access, Family and Compact as Starter, Select and Sports. A new Movies & Series package will join the line-up, and sports will be offered as a standalone bundle. Four DStv channels will close on September 16 and be replaced by four new SuperSport channels focused on premium football and major African events. MultiChoice also shifted streaming strategy, de-emphasising Showmax while promoting DStv Stream, and earlier this year removed BET Africa and MTV Base. For customers the changes come with new price points: Starter will cost R150 monthly on satellite, Select R339, and Sports R479 on satellite or R399 on DStv Stream. Compact Plus subscribers will be moved to Premium and will keep their current price for 12 months, after which they must choose whether to pay the new Premium rate.
