Americanas creditors, BNDES financing abroad, cybercrimes and what matters in the market

ANDsta is the edition of newsletterr FolhaMercado this Thursday (26). want to receive it from monday to Friday at 7 am In your email? Sign up below:

America’s creditors

Americanas delivered this Wednesday (25) its list of creditors to the Court, with 7,967 names and debts in the amount of BRL 41.2 billion.

In numbers: of the total, BRL 41 billion are owed to the unsecured class (unsecured credit), BRL 109.5 million to the class of micro and small companies, and BRL 64.8 million to the working class.

• See below the company’s largest creditors.

Banks go after billionaires: the relationship between the retailer’s creditor institutions and the trio Lemann, Telles and Sicupira, the company’s main shareholders, is becoming more and more tense.

• In the view of these institutions, this would pave the way for billionaires – and former administrators– to pay Americanas’ debts out of their own pockets.

In a judicial recovery process, a company’s debts are usually heavily discounted, an alternative rejected by the banks, which have reiterated that fraud led the company to this situation.

• Other side: in a statement, the partners claim they are unaware of the accounting failures. They said they were victims, like the other shareholders of the company, and committed themselves to the company’s recovery process.

This Thursday, BTG managed to block BRL 1.2 billion from Americanas, until competence is defined –in arbitration or RJ– to analyze the matter in court.

Americanas’ main creditors:

Banks: the institution identified as the largest creditor, with debts of R$ 5.2 billion, is Deutsche Bank, but the bank is only a custodian of Americanas debt securities held by investors abroad.

• Next come Bradesco (BRL 4.5 billion), Santander Brazil (BRL 3.6 billion), BTG Pactual (BRL 3.5 billion), Itaú Unibanco (BRL 2.7 billion), Crop (BRL 2.5 billion) and Bank of Brazil (BRL 1.36 billion).

• BV (Votorantim) is also mentioned in the list, with debts of R$ 3.3 billion, but the institution said that the exposure is much smaller, with credit of BRL 206 million.

Top 20 creditors from Americanas, only 3 are not from the financial sector: Samsung (BRL 1.2 billion), Nestlé Brazil (BRL 259.3 million), and Philco Electronics (BRL 197.3 million).

Opinion: Taking money from shareholders is just one battle in the Americana war, writes Vinicius Torres Freire.

BNDES and financing abroad

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) statement that the BNDES could once again finance Brazilian projects abroad resumed the debate about loans – and defaults suffered– by the development bank to allied countries in former PT administrations.

Understand: the loans at the center of the controversy are those of the policy classified by the bank as exports of Brazilian engineering goods and services.

• Under the initiative, the funds were allocated to Brazilian companies, in reais, and the importing countries assumed the debts. Payment should be made with interest, in dollars or euros.

• When there is default, the BNDES activates the structure of guarantees that allows reimbursement via the FGE (Export Guarantee Fund), fed with resources from the National Treasury – that is, from the taxpayer.

In numbers: BNDES disbursed about $10.5 billion between 1998 and 2017 to carry out projects in 15 countries. The largest part, 88% of the total, was from 2007 to 2015.

• Until September last year, the bank had received back $12.8 billionbetween principal portion of loans and interest.

And the default? Together, three countries accumulated $1 billion in defaults (September data):

• Venezuela had about $682 million in arrears, with US$ 641 million compensated by the FGE.

• Cuba had about $227 million in default. Of these, US$ 41 million had not been compensated.

• Mozambique had $122 million overdue and already compensated by the Treasury fund.

Today, this operation is suspended by the BNDES. The bank stated that it has no demand or forecast to finance infrastructure services abroad, emphasizing that current efforts are aimed at specifically leveraging the export of products and goods.

Opinion: Lula was right about the BNDES, despite being wrong, writes columnist Rodrigo Tavares.

Stock market at the maximum and dollar at the minimum of 2023

Driven by the flood of gringo money, the Stock Exchange closed this Wednesday at the highest of the year and the dollar at its lowest since November 2022.

In numbers: the Ibovespa rose 1.10%at 114,270 points, while the dollar closed at a low of 1.22%at BRL 5.079.

Which explains:

• Fed: the US central bank is meeting to decide the interest rate next week, and the market’s expectation is for a further decline in the pace of monetary tightening. The scenario takes strength from the dollar and benefits assets considered riskier.

• “Cheap” Brazilian bag: Assets here also benefit from an expectation of a drop in the Selic this year and a better performance of the Chinese economy, which should increase the value of commodities.

More about companies on the Exchange:

Tesla has released its closed 2022 results, with a profit of US$ 3.7 billion in the last quarter and $12.6 billion in the year, before $5.5 billion in 2021. The stock was up 5% in the aftermarket.

• CEO Elon Musk said that the company’s strategy of lowering the price of its cars has had an effect and that demand is almost twice as fast as the pace of production.

Cybercriminals get more selective

In 2022, cybercriminals became more selective and prioritized attacks with the greatest potential for payback, such as companies and government entities in developing countries.

• Another reason is the preparation of companies to defend themselves against ramsonware, data theft that skyrocketed during digitalization forced by the pandemic.

• Considered one of the most profitable cybercrimes, it is characterized by the blocking of systems and the subsequent collection of a ransom.

In Brazilcriminals took the opportunity to aim at protagonism in bank fraud beyond national lands.

• One of the most specialized groups on this front is Prillex, which is behind the ghost purchase scam, the one that diverts money from purchases without the store and the customer noticing.

Metaverse Attacks: among information security experts out there, the most likely threats in metaverse environments involve more common cybercrimes such as phishing and ransomware, but also other specific ones.

• This is the case of impersonating other people by cloning their voice and other characteristics into avatars and attacks that place an “invisible person” listening to a conversation, also called “person in the room”.