[5] It has since been proven that the administration of BES led by Ricardo Salgado "disobeyed the Bank of Portugal 21 times, between December 2013 and July 2014", practising "wilful acts of ruinous management".

The first references to trading that the “patriarch of the only dynasty of Portuguese bankers” was undertaking was in the purchase and sale of lotteries, along with national and international transactions in loan securities, on his own account.

This took place in his Casa de Cambio, situated in centre of Lisbon and which dated back to the second half of the 19th century (1869).

The purchase of the Comercial de Lisboa gave BES the capacity to exploit World War II financially through international transactions for products such as tungsten, which was much in demand by the Germans.

Within this context, the family re-established its financial interests abroad in countries such as Brazil, Switzerland, France, and the United States, culminating in 1975 with the creation of a holding company based in Luxembourg.

[3] This announcement, following BES record Q2 loss of €3.49 billion, allowed Portuguese stocks to outperform the broader European market the next day.

On 3 January 2011, BES was nominated "Best Trade Financial Bank" in Portugal for the fifth consecutive year by Global Finance magazine.