Resignation speeds up appointment of Bolsonaro’s nominee at Petrobras

The resignation of José Mauro Coelho opens space to speed up the appointment of Caio Paes de Andrade to the presidency of Petrobras, according to the company’s advisors. With the position vacant, the approval of the board of directors would be enough for the exchange planned by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

According to advisers heard by the Sheet, the appointment of the new president can be made by the collegiate and then ratified at the shareholders’ meeting. The government hopes to make the exchange later this week, but a meeting has yet to be scheduled.

This Monday (20), after the confirmation of Coelho’s resignation, Petrobras’ board of directors appointed the company’s director of exploration and production, Fernando Borges, as interim president.

Coelho was fired at the end of May, but he resisted giving up the position before a shareholders’ meeting was held to assess the list of government nominees for the company’s board of directors, which includes Paes de Andrade.

The meeting does not yet have a date set. It depends on the analysis, by an internal committee, of the CVs of the nominees and must respect a minimum period of 30 days between their call and their performance. Therefore, Coelho’s resistance was the target of attacks by the government and allies.

In an article published in Sheet This Sunday (19), the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), called Coelho an “illegitimate president, who does not represent the majority shareholder and practices corporate terrorism as a personal revenge against the President of the Republic”.

The government and allies in Congress are threatening the installation of a CPI to investigate the company’s management. “The time has come to take the mask off Petrobras,” wrote Lira.

Private Petrobras shareholders fear that pressure from central parties hides the desire to regain influence on the state-owned board. The PP of the Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira, for example, was appointed as guarantor of former director Paulo Roberto Costa, the first whistleblower of Operation Lava Jato.

On the other hand, representatives of minority shareholders started to defend more agility in the change of command, to reduce the crisis that dropped the value of the company’s shares to the lowest value of the year last Friday (17).

The meeting to endorse the name of Paes de Andrade must be scheduled as soon as internal procedures are completed, such as the evaluation of the name by the people committee. Bolsonaro has already announced that the new president will change the entire board of the company.

The renewal of the board, however, depends on the holding of the shareholders’ meeting. To reduce resistance from private investors to interference in management, the government proposed a list made up mostly of holders of public office.

Among them, Nogueira’s number two in the Civil House, Jonathas Assunção. It is the first time since the Dilma government that an occupant of the Palácio do Planalto has been nominated to occupy the board of directors of Petrobras.