Panel SA: Businessmen meet in Miami with apprehension and expectation about Lula’s first days

Still in the year-end recess, businessmen from the Esfera Brasil group did not start the official round of meetings with the members of the new government, but they have already held informal meetings in which, obviously, the first days of the Lula government are discussed. In the last event on the agenda, in December, Aloizio Mercadante announced the main names of his BNDES board.

This week, João Camargo, chairman of the board at Esfera, received at his home in Miami names such as physician Claudio Lottenberg, Jaimes Almeida Junior, from the shopping mall market, Marcelo Kayath, formerly of Credit Suisse, Jay Goldman, also from the financial market, among others.

The tone of conversations this first week is that it is necessary to give credibility to Fernando Haddad at the Farm and honor him with the expectation that things will improve. The mood, however, is not the most optimistic. Despite the willingness to give confidence to the new government, there is still a certain concern with fiscal policy, the biggest thorn in the throat of these first days of the year. Despite these signs of apprehension, there is a belief in a course correction in time.

Joana Cunha with Paulo Ricardo Martins and Diego Felix