The companies using Portugal's bleak outlook to their advantage

The companies using Portugal’s bleak outlook to their advantage

An overwhelming debt burden, a weak stock market and most recently, more failed stress tests for its banks - investing in Portugal is not for the faint hearted. However, Hugh Cuthbert (left), manager of the SVM Continental Europe fund, highlights the domestic companies growing in spite of the country's bleak outlook.

Despite an economy almost one-tenth the size of the UK, Portugal has received a remarkable amount of press coverage over recent months - but for all the wrong reasons. The country has been mired in scandal as Banco Espírito de Santo, once Portugal's largest listed bank, collapsed amid a tangled web of complex corporate structures and intra-company debt. The fear of further revelations and the sheer size and complexity of the bank, and its associated companies, has implications for the Portuguese economy as a whole. As a natural consequence, the equity market has markedly underperforme...