Portuguese real estate, energy and technology sectors have potential for deal activity – FCB Sociedade de Advogados

Though there may have been a moderate decline in investor interest in Portugal in the last year, there remains potential for deals in the real estate, energy and technology sectors, according to Pedro Guimarães, partner at FCB Sociedade de Advogados.

“There has been a slight reluctance in 2016 to see Portugal as attractive a market as it was in 2015, and hopefully next year we will see a change in that,” Guimarães says. “However, there are a number of sectors that have remained attractive and increased the level of investment, particularly real estate in the two main cities (Lisbon and Porto).”
Any uptick in activity in the real estate, energy or technology sectors will go some way to offsetting the downturn in work in Lusophone Africa – work that kept many Portuguese lawyers busy during the financial crisis. “Both Angola and Mozambique, for different reasons, have not been as attractive markets in the last year-and-a-half as they were before,” says Guimarães. “Mozambique for the hidden debt problem, which remains unresolved, and Angola as a result of the oil price crisis that is not going to get resolved in the near future.”