The strong man to lead TAP?

TAP continues to experience turbulent times and Christine Ormeyer-Widener’s leadership will not have an easy future, especially after revelations that the airline TAP was led by the CEO, British regional Flybe, has entered bankruptcy. At the moment it seems to be firmly in the Portuguese company and has received an award at the end of 2025 if it can successfully complete the restructuring process which, according to Correio da Manha, should amount to two million euros. But while the current chief is going through this turbulent phase, there’s a name running through the aisles as the airline’s best chief of leadership: Paulo Macedo, current president of Caixa Geral de Depósitos.

Macedo began to make a name for himself in the public sphere as Director General of Taxes and Chairman of the Board of Tax Administration, being one of the faces responsible for modernizing the tax machine.

At the time, the Minister of Finance, Teixeira dos Santos, acknowledged that “people are important”, but stressed that “above all, it is necessary for services to function efficiently”, acknowledging that he was “the first to recognize the merits of Paulo Macedo’s work at the head of the Directorate General of Taxes”. (DGCI)”, but ensured that “the best tribute that could be paid to him” consisted neither in his deification, nor in his conversion to D. system, but you have to realize that management has changed.”

But his real transition into politics came with his appointment as Minister of Health, a position he held from 2011 to 2015, at a time when the country faced a financial bailout and was forced to implement the Memorandum of Understanding with the Troika. The aim was simple: to tightly control public spending on the National Health Service. A work that has led him to receive criticism but also almost consensual criticism of his managerial ability.

He excels in banking but it is in banking – firstly at BCP, where he spent part of his career – that he reaps the great rewards of his reputation. And now more recently in Caixa Geral de Depósitos, where he is in his second term.

Years and years of losses behind us, statements such as that of former manager José de Matos (who took over the leadership of Caixa in 2011) who likened the public bank to an “oil tanker that is difficult to transport” and the controversial authorship of EY to manage CGD between 2000 and 2015, forcing the bank he heads Paolo Macedo is now making profound changes: implementing a new risk analysis model in credit granting, strengthening the independence of the person most responsible for risk management and creating a rating to strengthen control over corporate loan portfolios.

Once Paulo Macedo took the reins in February 2017, the public bank returned to profit. That year, Caixa recorded a positive result of 52 million euros, fulfilling the CEO’s promise: the public bank will only have positive results when the entire restructuring is realized. A year in which the financial institution committed to advancing “deep cost cuts” and restructuring international operations. The dispute was the reduction of 2,218 workers and the closure of 181 branches.

The following year, the bank’s profits, led by Paulo Macedo, nearly doubled by ten, to €496 million. An increase that prompted Roy Villar to ensure his return to shareholder bonuses. The subject of the dispute was the distribution of profits in the range of 200 million euros.

CGD marks 2019 with its best result ever. The financial institution made a profit of 776 million euros, representing an increase of 56.5% compared to the previous year, when it provided 496 million euros.

The financial institution partly justified the good performance with the “extraordinary result of €144 million” related to the sale of its international subsidiaries, namely Banco Caixa Geral (in Spain) and Mercantile (in South Africa). These sales allowed CGD to “reverse the impairment” established in 2017.

The same scenario was repeated in 2020 with a profit of 492 million euros, with a decrease of 36.5% compared to the previous year. The public bank realized that this decline was due to the effects of the pandemic, which forced the institution led by Paulo Macedo to generate losses of 300 million euros.

The profit story was repeated again in 2021 with an increase in results by 18.7% to 583 million euros. However, it did not live up to the figures presented before the pandemic: in 2019, it recorded a profit of 776 million euros.

The results of 2022 are not yet known, but in the first nine months of the year it showed an increase in profits by 61% to reach 692 million euros, and the public bank is considering paying the “largest return in history” to taxpayers in the range of 286 million euros related to activity until September.

But it is true that their formula for success is based on reducing the structure and increasing commissions. This goal is rarely flexible to change, as many people who have encountered it admit (see pages 4/5). The controversy was the collection of the account books, as well as the termination of maintenance exemptions on most products. And the numbers speak for themselves: commissions alone rose by almost 11% to 459 million euros. However, Paulo Macedo confirmed that he will not increase commissions this year.