Carrinho and the Concentration of Financial Power in Angola [analysis]

Source: Maka Angola

A statement issued by Banco BPI on September 3, 2026, says the bank has agreed to sell its entire 33.35 percent stake in Banco de Fomento Angola, or BFA, to Congolian Financial, SA, a Lobito-based company that serves as the financial arm of the Carrinho conglomerate.

Completion remains subject to several legal and regulatory conditions: no objection from the National Bank of Angola; confirmation from the Capital Markets Commission that Congolian Financial is not required to launch a mandatory takeover bid; and Unitel’s decision not to exercise the pre-emption right established in the shareholders’ agreement.

The price includes a fixed €345 million payment on completion, a deferred fixed payment of about €43.5 million, and a variable sum equal to half of BFA’s dividend for 2026. The deferred components are due in May 2027.

This is not an ordinary transaction. Its implications for Angola’s banking system could be systemic. That concentration warrants close scrutiny before regulators allow it to reshape the distribution of financial power.

In February, this publication described how Carrinho had pursued an expansion strategy between 2021 and 2025 that extended its influence across the Angolan economy, from agribusiness and logistics into banking. Its entry into finance began on December 17, 2021, when it acquired Banco de Comércio e Indústria, or BCI. In August 2024, the Competition Regulatory Authority authorised another concentration, allowing Carrinho to assume control of Banco Keve, subject to approval by the National Bank of Angola. There is still no public information about Carrinho’s actual performance at Banco Keve.

In 2025, the group acquired 7.61 percent of BFA through Congolian Financial. Maka Angola’s earlier warning about the emergence of a banking oligopoly prompted verbal and written attacks, threats and denials. The latest transaction now brings that warning into sharper focus.

Congolian Financial recently transferred its 7.61 percent BFA holding to the AXIOS fund. It ceased to be a direct shareholder, but retained financial exposure by receiving fund units representing its subscription to AXIOS’s assets. After acquiring the shares, AXIOS controlled about 9.85 percent of BFA’s capital and voting rights, becoming a qualified shareholder. The restructuring formally removed Congolian from BFA’s shareholder register while preserving an economic interest through the fund.

The new 33.35 percent stake must therefore be considered alongside that continuing exposure. On this analysis, Carrinho-linked interests would occupy the largest position in BFA, ahead of Unitel’s 36.9 percent holding. Another question remains: does Carrinho already hold an interest in Unitel? Nelson Carrinho has denied any such interest, despite persistent market rumours. A clearer answer will emerge only when the identities and positions of Unitel’s new shareholders become known, including any direct or indirect Carrinho participation.

Carrinho’s financial reach also includes Prospectum Capital, the group’s brokerage arm and an increasingly important participant in Angola’s capital markets. In 2025, amid BFA’s privatisation and the aggressive entry of new investors, Prospectum rose to fourth place in the market, handling Kz701.29 billion in transactions. Its ascent reflected both a changing market and Carrinho’s growing role across the country’s equity markets.

In 2016, writing about Isabel dos Santos’s rising control of banking, Maka Angola warned that whoever dominates a country’s banks gains access to its savings. The danger was not necessarily that deposits would simply be stolen, but that savings could be lent to companies belonging to the same owner, creating a closed circuit capable, in an extreme but possible case, of producing a domino effect.

Carrinho, one of Angola’s principal and fastest-growing conglomerates, is moving in that direction and has become something close to Isabel dos Santos’s successor. That earlier case ended in tragedy; this one must not end in farce.

Combining BFA, BCI and Banco Keve with Prospectum would create a financial group controlling more than a quarter of Angola’s banking market. Carrinho would become the country’s largest privately owned banking conglomerate with domestic capital, able to influence credit, corporate finance and savings flows. Prospectum would reinforce that power in the capital markets. Only BAI, the sole bank of comparable size, would provide a partial counterweight.

The integration of banks, brokerage, industry and logistics may look efficient, but it also creates a closed financing circuit. Carrinho could gather deposits through its banks, channel them into its own projects, structure market transactions through Prospectum and control essential value chains at the same time. Such an architecture weakens market discipline. Internal projects might receive funding regardless of economic viability, distorting capital allocation and misdirecting resources in strategic sectors. It could compromise the neutrality of lending decisions, constrain business dynamism and make the financial system more vulnerable to domestic shocks. Supervisors should weigh those systemic risks carefully.

There is also an unanswered question about financing. Carrinho’s banking acquisitions have cost more than $500 million. Its investments elsewhere include the Catumbela Industrial Complex, reportedly costing about $600 million. Together, these commitments readily exceed $1 billion.

The law does not require the privately held group to publish its accounts, and Carrinho has auditors. Even so, confidence in Angola’s economy demands a clearer explanation of how a pasta and biscuit manufacturer became perhaps the country’s largest conglomerate and a dominant banking force. The public interest lies in knowing the accounts: revenue, funding sources, profits and losses.

Everything may be lawful and sound. But the maxim attributed to Julius Caesar still applies: “Non solum honesta esse, sed etiam videri debent.” Caesar’s wife must not only be honest; she must be seen to be honest.

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