In 1940, Sachimaro Sagawa, a member of the board of the Japanese strategic development company Nan’yō Kōhatsu, bought 48% of SAPT for one million pounds sterling.

[3] As a result, Dr Sales Luís, who had sold the shares to Nan’yō Kōhatsu, was banned from re-entering Portuguese Timor as a "bad patriot".

The company had a monopoly on the purchase of Arabica coffee, the finest and most important variety grown in Timor,[3] and also produced cocoa and rubber.

In import/export business, SAPT and the Sociedade Oriental de Transportes e Armazens (Sota) were the only companies that were out of the hands of the local Chinese population.

After East Timor became independent in 2002, the new government was burdened with the complex responsibility of working out what to do with the tracts of land previously owned by SAPT.