LISBON (Reuters) - Leading shareholders in Portugal's largest listed bank, Millennium bcp, have invited the head of the country's largest state-owned bank to become chief executive, a source and local media reported on Sunday.

The move followed the decision by Portuguese authorities on Friday to ask the bank's current management to leave, and regulators said they are investigating the bank for links to a series of offshore companies that bought Millennium shares.
As a result Chief Executive Filipe Pinhal, who only took over in September, will leave when his mandate expires in January.
The management instability began earlier this year when the former chief executive lost a power struggle with Chairman Jorge Jardim Goncalves and decided to leave.
In order to turn a page on the past, leading shareholders decided the best person to take over is Carlos Santos Ferreira, head of state-owned Caixa Geral de Depositos, the country's largest bank.
""I can confirm that Carlos Santos Ferreira was invited to head the executive board of Millennium bcp,"" a source close to one of the shareholders told Reuters.
The decision to put an executive from the public sector at the head of Portugal's largest private bank came as the government voiced increasing concern about Millennium over the weekend.
""When a bank as large as this is going through instability and even a lack of definition about its management, I am certainly worried, because we run the risk that a worsening of the situation could even affect the banking system,"" Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos was quoted as saying by news agency Lusa.
Local newspapers have been writing for weeks about the allegations surrounding Millennium. But the situation came to a head on Friday when the Bank of Portugal called a meeting with shareholders, and the CMVM market regulator gave the bank until Dec. 27 to provide more information on its dealings with offshore companies.
Shareholders and regulators may be lucky with their timing as Portuguese financial markets will only be open for half a day on Dec. 24 in the next three days.
Millennium decided to boost its capital ratios last week by selling shareholder stakes worth 445 million euros.