Americanas cited BBB and Easter eggs in a request to the Court – 01/19/2023 – Market

In the request for judicial reorganization sent this Thursday (19) to the Justice, drawn up by the offices Basilio Advogados and Salomão Kaiuca Abrahão Raposo Cotta, and which was accepted this afternoon, Americanas begins by saying that it is a “reason of pride for the Brazilian”, for being an “almost century-old” retailer (founded in 1927, in Rio, by a quartet of American immigrants, hence the chain’s name), with many points of sale (3,600), which serve more than 50 million consumers and generate “more than 100,000 direct and indirect jobs”. In addition, it also pays R$ 2 billion in taxes per year.

“The Americanas Group is much more than it appears at this time of storm it is going through”, says the text. “Americanas is a giant in the Brazilian and world markets, which needs the support and understanding of the Judiciary and creditors to overcome this crisis.”

It also mentions the sponsorship of the Globo network reality show, Big Brother Brasil (BBB), a program in which it became a “partner” in recent years (but gave up its support this year, which ended up with its rival, Market Livre). And she says many vendors depend on her to stay in business.

“In many cases, the Americanas Group is the largest, if not the only, buyer of products and services from suppliers, so that these would also be severely affected in the event of the closure of their activities. Such customers would have their production chain interrupted, in true cascading effect. It is worth mentioning that the eventual collapse of Grupo Americanas would certainly have a systemic effect on the chain of important sectors of the Brazilian economy”, says the text.

The company also points out that “the group’s crisis may even affect the price of the Easter egg, as it is the largest retailer of Easter eggs in the world!”, he says.

“Creditors took hasty measures and did not negotiate”

When talking about creditors, especially banks, the retailer places itself as the victim of a “real attack”, whose core – the disclosure of “accounting inconsistencies of BRL 20 billion”– it claims to be unaware of. The main criticisms are directed at BTG Pactual, which this Wednesday (18) obtained a writ of mandamus in court to block BRL 1.2 billion in the company’s account with the financial institution, as a way to guard against a possible default , as revealed by Sheet.

“A few creditors, without thinking about the impacts on the community, took hasty measures that culminated in the dangerous emptying of the company’s cash and, consequently, made its short-term operation and a collective bargaining solution unfeasible without the recovery remedy”, he says.

The company continues: “It is worth mentioning that, less than six hours after the disclosure to the market of the fact
material, on 1/11/2023, regarding the inconsistencies in the company’s financial statements, some creditors, without any contractual or legal basis, had already declared the early maturity of the company’s obligations, some seizing billionaire amounts, closing their doors for any kind of viable friendly negotiation.”

“One of the creditors filed a manifestly inappropriate writ of mandamus to try, at any cost, to grant suspensive effect to prevent compliance with the court order that determined the return of essential resources for the operation of the Americanas”, says the text.

“The situation was even worse due to the consecutive rating downgrades of Americanas, due to the
risk classification agencies, which made the banks refuse to advance credit card receivables, an operation routinely and historically carried out by Grupo Americanas for working capital, draining more than R$ 3 billion from the Company’s cash”, says the company.

“All these elements only made the state of crisis established by the publication of the Material Fact, which took the value of Americanas shares to an unprecedented drop of almost 80% in less than a week, to worsen even more, with the value of the shares shares reached their lowest level in recent years on the eve of this recovery request”, he says.

“For these reasons, the Americanas Group found itself deadlocked, needing to amend, within seven days, the precautionary measure, in order for this request for judicial recovery to be received”.

Company says it acted with “transparency and courage” by revealing “misfortune”

Through its lawyers, Americanas says that its operation has always been healthy and that the company adopted a transparent, loyal and courageous posture when revealing the R$ 20 billion accounting scandal, about which it does not know what happened and which “still it’s too soon” to know who is responsible for this “misfortune”.

He also claims that, from one hour to the next, his cashier collapsed.

“The operation of Grupo Americanas has always been healthy, having remained that way until a week ago, when the Company was still seen as a sustainable and very promising society. However, for unexpected reasons and which shook the entire structured group, the applicants your cash and billing expectations collapse in a matter of minutes”, he informs.

“It all happened because the company revealed -it is emphasized, with unusual transparency, courage and loyalty-, to the market the inconsistencies in accounting entries reducing the “Suppliers” account, made in previous years, including the year 2022 It is still too early to determine what happened and who are responsible for this misfortune”, he said.

The company highlights the creation of an independent committee, “made up of professionals of high caliber and reputation”, led by “renowned jurist and former CVM director”, Dr. Otávio Yazbek to “investigate and present his conclusions to shareholders, the market and society in general.”

“The company’s accounting area, through the operational flow management report, estimates that the amounts of inconsistencies are around BRL 20 billion, on the base date of 9/30/2022, which could increase the
financial indebtedness of the Americanas Group to the approximate amount of R$ 40 billion”, he informs.

The “rush for the assets” belonging to Americanas, says the text, meant that “all the company’s cash has been dredged up by financial institutions holding claims against the group”. “The risk, then, if the immediate processing of this judicial reorganization is not granted, is of an absolute annihilation of the Americanas Group’s cash flow, which will prevent the fulfillment of daily obligations indispensable to the exercise of the business activity, such as the payment of suppliers and employees.”

In the end, the group says it is aware “of the need to present monthly accounts and fights for the production of evidence that may be necessary, as well as for the possible rectification of the information and statements contained in this document and in the initial petition of the precautionary request.”