Eletrobras announces voluntary dismissal plan for 2,312 employees

The recently privatized Eletrobras announced this Friday (28) a new voluntary redundancy plan for retired employees or those who will reach the conditions to retire by April 30, 2023. According to the company, there are 2,312 workers in this condition both at the holding and in its subsidiaries.

The membership period will be from November 1st to 18th, and terminations will take place between December 2022 and April 2023.

The company estimates that the plan will cost R$ 1 billion, with the payment of rights and incentives, such as the payment of nine salaries and expenses equivalent to three years of health plan and one year of food allowance.

The value would be recovered in just over 11 months, said Eletrobras in a note, which since June has been a company without a defined controller: in the privatization process, the government issued new shares to private investors, reducing its share to 29%.

The possibility of a new layoffs incentive program had been announced by the company’s president, Wilson Ferreira Junior, in his first interview after returning to the position after a stint at Vibra (ex-BR Distribuidora).

In the last years of state-owned company, also under the command of Ferreira Junior, the company reduced its staff from 26 thousand to less than 12 thousand people.

The voluntary dismissal plan is being implemented simultaneously in the companies Eletrobras CGT Eletrosul, Chesf, Eletronorte and Furnas, in addition to the holding itself.

In an interview at the end of September, Ferreira Junior also said that the company will continue to make efforts to simplify its shareholding structure, which has four subsidiaries and participation in several energy generation and transmission projects across the country.

The subsidiaries, however, will not be closed, said the Executive, due to their regional relevance.

He stated that the company should direct its growth strategy to the areas that are currently the focus of its activity: renewable energy generation and transmission. Government auctions should be the main path to growth and majority ownership.

“As of now, we are not a financial investor, so we have no interest in minority stakes,” said the executive, who also said he did not believe in the possibility of renationalizing the company in the event of Lula’s victory in this year’s elections.

The process included a clause, known as the “poison pill”, which makes it difficult to regain the majority position by determining that interested parties to take control make a public offering of shares.

“If you want to take a step back, renationalize, it will cost. And, in the specific case of Eletrobras, the poison pill is almost three times the value traded on the stock exchange”, he claimed. “It makes no economic sense, the government has a fabulous fiscal challenge.”