Portugal says four groups submitted binding offers for nationalised Efacec

LISBON (Reuters) - Four Portuguese and foreign companies have submitted binding offers to buy a 71.7% stake in loss-making engineering firm Efacec, once owned by Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos and nationalised in 2020, state holding company Parpublica said.

It said in a statement late on Tuesday that it "had received, within the established deadline, improved binding proposals" from three private equity funds - Germany's Mutares, U.S.-based Oaktree and Portugal's Oxy Capital.

It received another from a consortium owned by Portuguese companies Visabeira and Sodecia, it said.

Visabeira is a conglomerate with businesses ranging from telecommunications and energy to tourism, while Sodecia manufactures automotive components.

Portugal nationalized the majority stake in Efacec Power Solutions in July 2020 after Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of former Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, became a suspect in a fraud investigation in Angola and her bank accounts in Portugal were seized.

Dos Santos, who bought her stake in Efacec in 2015 for around 200 million euros ($218.4 million) through offshore company Winterfell 2 Limited, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Parpublica said it will now analyze the four proposals, without providing any details. Subsequently, it will classify the proposals by merit and send them to the government for a final decision.

The last time Efacec publicly disclosed its accounts was in 2020, when it booked a loss of 73.4 million euros and had gross debt of more than 180 million euros.

Efacec employs more than 2,300 people in Portugal and is deemed important by the government because of its innovative engineering projects, especially in the areas of energy and electric mobility.

($1 = 0.9158 euros)

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Inti Landauro and Jan Harvey)