Sonangol: Isabel Dos Santos legacy clings to Saturnino

摘要

The 2017 financial statements publishedby Sonangol in early January paints IsabelDos Santos’ time at the helm of the stateownedfirm as a period of mixed results.Appointed in June 2016 when the oil crisiswas at its height ( AEI 775), the daughterof former President Jose Eduardo DosSantos, in power from 1979 to 2017, wasunable to implement the restructuring planshe had envisaged for the company tofocus its activities on oil and gas in the 18months she held the top seat. Despiterecording $87 million in profit for 2017,largely due to a recovery in oil prices, allnon-oil & gas activities dropped into thered, with an EBITDA of -$31.7 million. IsabelDos Santos even left her successor, CarlosSaturnino, a slightly larger workforce forthese non-core activities, whose payrollgrew from 1738 to 1839 out of the firm’stotal 8099 employees for 2017. Followingon from financial difficulties in the precedingyears ( WAN 744), matters wentfrom bad to worse for the group’s airlinecompany Sonair in 2017 with passengernumbers down by 17%. Sonangol’s hospitalbranch, Clinica Girassol suffered thesame fate, where its occupancy rate fell48% to 42%. In September 2018, Saturnino,who took up his post at the end of 2017,presented President Joao Lourenco witha list of 54 subsidiaries owned by Sonangoland that are ready to be privatised. Theseall concern non-core activities in a widermove for the firm to focus on the oil chain( AEI 824).