BPCGY Banco Comercial Portugues SA (PK)

LISBON—Banco Comercial Portuguê s SA said Saturday that China's Fosun Industrial Holdings Ltd. has offered to buy a 16.7% stake in the Portuguese lender, potentially raising its holdings to up to 30%.

The stake acquisition, which would be through a private placement, is subject to a series of conditions including that the price would be of not more than €0.02 (2 cents) a share, BCP said in a statement.

Shares of the bank ended Friday at €0.02. After markets closed, the lender reported a first-half-year loss of €197.3 million ($220.4 million) compared with a profit of €240.7 million a year ago on higher impairments, including for loans. The lender had also booked a €273.6 million gain from the sale of Portuguese sovereign debt securities in the 2015 period.

It also said under that under a European Banking Authority stress test, its Core Tier 1 ratio on a fully-loaded basis would be 6.1% under a stressed scenario, up from a 5.5% threshold many analysts set as the minimum to consider a bank properly capitalized.

Nonetheless, analysts have pointed out that the lender will likely need to raise capital. Portuguese lenders have been hard hit by souring loans that rose along with a struggling economy and low interest rates that made new lending less profitable.

BCP said it would carefully analyze Fosun's offer to make a recommendation to the board.

Fosun's plan for BCP could include it raising its holdings to up to 30% through share acquisitions in the secondary market and any future capital increases by the lender.

Fosun, which has an insurance operation in Portugal, was one of the bidders for another Portuguese lender, Novo Banco SA, last year. The sale was shelved by the central bank after it couldn't agree with the bidders on a price.

Fosun bought resort operator Club Mé diterrané e SA in February 2015 and a stake in avant-garde circus troupe Cirque du Soleil in April 2015.

Write to Patricia Kowsmann at patricia.kowsmann@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 31, 2016 21:05 ET (01:05 GMT)

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