Business Park (ALE)
A demarcated, fenced-off area licensed under Decree-Law no. 70/2003, of 10 April, housing premises for certain types of industrial activities, as well as commercial activities and services, run by a company responsible for managing the site.
The ALE are thus planned, ordered and integrated concentrations of business activities served by appropriate infra-structures and support facilities, which may include other complementary services such as occupational health, hygiene and safety and vocational training, among others.
· Which entity is responsible for industrial licensing?
· What is the average time it takes to get an industrial license?
· Which body is responsible for the tourism licensing process?
Developer
The entity responsible for developing a project that forms the basis of an application to any of the systems of incentives.
· As a foreign investor in Portugal, who should I approach?
· How does the process of risk capital investment work?
· How do you repurchase the capital held by a venture capital firm?
Important Tourism Projects
Regulatory Decree no. 22/98, of 21 September, defines the following as important tourism facilities: marinas, ports and docks geared primarily towards leisure, tourism and sport; thermal and therapeutic baths; theme parks developed around a historical, cultural, ethnographic, leisure or environmental theme and which attract tourists; golf courses; tourist cruise vessels; premises and facilities including conference and meeting halls; other tourist facilities and entertainment venues of a cultural, sporting or thematic nature; projects or activities with no fixed premises, such as economic, promotional, gastronomic, cultural, ethnographic, scientific, environmental or sporting events.
Industrial Activity
Any activity included in the Portuguese classification of economic activities under the terms of Article 2(a) of Decree-Law no. 69/2003, of 10 April.
· Is there a special licensing procedure for setting up a industrial facility in Portugal?
Industrial establishment
The total covered and uncovered area of a site where one or more industrial activities are carried out, regardless of its size, number of workers, equipment and other factors of production listed under Article 2(m) of Decree-Law no.69/2003, of 10 April.
· Which entity is responsible for industrial licensing?
· What is the average time it takes to get an industrial license?
Mergers, acquisitions and splits
A merger may be performed by transferring the entire assets of one or more companies to another and allocating shares in this company to partners in the former. Or a new company can be formed, to which the entire assets of the merged companies are transferred, their partners being allocated shares in the new company. In addition to shares in the incorporating or new company, partners in the incorporated or merged companies may be offered cash payments of up to 10% of the face value of the shares they are allocated.
There are various types of demerger provided for in Article 118(1) of the Companies Code: a company can drop some of its assets to form a new company (spin-off); a company can be dissolved and have its assets divided, with each of the resulting parts being used to form a new company (break-up); a company can remove certain of its assets, or be dissolved and have its assets divided into two or more parts, in order to merge these with existing companies or with assets of other companies removed in the same way for the same purpose (demerger-merger).
· What is the legal framework for company mergers and demergers?
Small or Medium-sized Enterprise
The definition of small or medium-sized enterprise used in this guide is the one put forward by European Commission Recommendation no. 2003/361/EC, of 6 May 2003, which describes an SME as a company that meets the following criteria:
Has less than 250 employees;
Has an annual turnover of less than €50 million or an overall annual balance sheet of less than €43 million;
Is independent, defined as follows: no more than 25% of its share capital or voting rights are owned by a company or companies which do not come under the definition of an SME or small company. The threshold for independence can be exceeded if the following investors are involved, as long as they do not exert any control, either individually or jointly, over the company in question: public holding companies; venture capital companies; individuals or groups of individuals who regularly make venture capital investments in the equity of unlisted companies (business angels), as long as their total investment in a single company does not exceed €1,250,000; universities or non-profit research centres; institutional investors, including regional development funds; local and autonomous authorities with an annual budget of under €10 million and with less than 5,000 inhabitants. It is assumed that these investors will not control or interfere directly or indirectly in the management of the company in question, notwithstanding their rights as shareholders or partners. A company with over 25% of its share capital or voting rights controlled by a state-owned collective or public body is not an SME. If a company’s share capital is distributed in such a way that it is impossible to determine who owns it, the company may still declare itself an SME as long as it can state in good faith that it has no reason to believe that it is 25% or more owned by a company or companies that do not come under the definition of an SME or small company.
A small company is defined as having fewer than 50 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet of no more than €10 million, as well as fulfilling the independence criteria described above.
A micro company is distinct from other types of SME in that it has fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or overall balance sheet of under €2 million.
Apprentices and students holding a vocational training contract are not counted as employees, nor are staff on maternity or parental leave.
· As a small or medium-sized enterprise, who should I approach?
Systems of Incentives
The systems of incentives are frameworks that set the conditions which determine whether a developer's operations are eligible for certain types of assistance, as well as the maximum amount of assistance they can obtain and how it is paid. They are different from an individual subsidy in that they are not designed to be allocated to a particular company, but rather to an indeterminate group of companies.
These economic policy instruments seek to implement broad guidelines, such as developing a particular region and/or sector, improving corporate capacity, supporting international expansion or creating employment.
Each system of incentives is aimed at a “target audience” pre-defined in accordance with the objectives that are hoped to be achieved and determined by the size of the companies involved, their location, sector of activity and the size of the investment (there are minimum and maximum limits).
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