Visabeira: “In Portugal, a stigma has been created that large companies are the main criminals of the state”

Visabeira is one of the largest Portuguese companies. The headquarters is located in Viseu. She made headlines in 2009 when she bought Vista Alegre and Bordallo Pinheiro. The purchase of Bordallo Pinheiro, in which the government headed at that time by José Sócrates, whose Minister of Economy Manuel Pinho was the Minister of Economy, was directly involved, was celebrated precisely in the presence of the then Prime Minister. “The best way to respond to a crisis is to do something. We have not solved all the problems, but we have solved some of them, for example, Bordallo Pinheiro,” José Socrates said at a ceremony dedicated to this purchase in 2009, Lusa quotes.

Nuno Terra Marquez, CEO of Visabeira since 2015, suggests that after 14 years of two companies in the portfolio of the Vista Alegre Atlantis group – which will turn 200 in 2023 and have a commemorative program that its president is ending – and Bordallo Pinheiro are viable . And this is the spirit of the recovery of companies that are also launching Visabeira in the process of privatizing Efacec, even as the head of state is showing concern about the financial situation – and deteriorating – of the company in Maia, which the previous government of Antonio Costa nationalized and is now trying to sell.

Is participating in Efacec a favor? “No. It’s a strategic business interest of Visabeira” who fears for the company. “It’s related to the machines”