How it started
History
Banco Pan was founded in 1969 when Grupo Silvio Santos, owned by billionaire media-man Silvio Santos, purchased the Banco Real Sul and renamed it PanAmericano.
The bank has operated as a multi-service bank since 1991, starting its credit card operations in 1994 and leasing operations in 1998 through a subsidiary, Panamericano Arrendamento Mercantil. In 1999, the insurance company, Panamericano de Seguros was incorporated into the bank. Banco Pan has been offering payroll deduction loans since 2002.
In 2005 it garnered public attention for large bonuses. In 2009, Caixa Econômica Federal, the second largest Brazilian state-owned bank, bought part of the Grupo Silvio Santos shares becoming the second largest shareholder of the institution.
Crisis of 2010
On November 8, 2010, Silvio Santos, announced a loan of 2.5 billion reais (1.4 billion dollars) to cover an accounting fraud at Banco Pan. The loan provided by the Credit Guarantee Fund and secured by assets of the business assets of Grupo Silvio Santos, was necessary to restore the full balance sheet. The bank had continued to account for credit portfolios that had been sold to other financial institutions, thus falsifying assets.
From Wikipedia’s article on Banco Pan, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2