QUALIFYING HOLDING Under the terms and for the purposes of Article 17 of the Portuguese Securities Market Code (CVM), we inform that Banco Espirito Santo, S.A, a publicly held company with a share capital of 1.500.000.000,00 Euros, corporate tax no. 500 852 367, registered with the Lisbon Companies’ Registry under the no. 1607, informed Portucel, under the terms and for the purposes of Article 16 of the Portuguese Securities Market Code, that: a) on November 12, 2004 it acquired 25.826.412 shares of Portucel - Empresa Produtora de Pasta de Papel, S.A representative of circa 3.37% of the share capital and voting rights; b) on the same day, it sold the referred volume of shares; c) these transactions were both made over the counter (OTC’s); d) under the terms of Article 20 of the Portuguese Securities Market Code, no voting rights are imputable to Banco Espirito Santo, S.A., after these two transactions. Setúbal, 16th of November 2004