Americanas: CPI’s next steps, second president – 07/10/2023 – Market

The next steps of the CPI of Americanas are the summoning and breach of secrecy of former executives of the retailer. An eventual trip by the entrepreneurs Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Herrmann Telles and Carlos Alberto Sicupira to the committee would be for a second moment.

Summoning them now would be “starting at the end”, he told Sheet the chairman of the committee, federal deputy Gustinho Ribeiro (Republicanos-SE).

“No investigation can start at the end. There is a certain anxiety in some members [da CPI]but we have tried to conduct the work of this CPI in a very calm way, our idea is not to disrupt the business environment”, he said.

“If necessary, we will have no problem calling anyone, but right now we have seen a majority feeling that there is no need to call up now [dos acionistas de referência]”, he added.

For the time being, the line that will continue to guide the work of the CPI was that presented by the CEO of the retailer, Leonardo Coelho, of attributing fraud in the company to the former board, with the possible collusion of the auditing companies.

In his speech at the commission, Coelho brought a report made by the company with messages from former executives discussing the fraud.

“The CEO of Americanas actually opened up a line that needs to be investigated, there’s no way we can escape it”, pointed out the president of the CPI.

“If the CEO of the company claims that it was practiced [uma fraude] by its directors, it is natural that the investigations follow this path, not least because this statement was public.”

The investigation will also include changes in the assets of the company’s former executives. A Sheet revealed that former director Anna Christina Ramos Saicali transferred to her son the shares of a company with equity of R$ 13 million less than 20 days after the announcement made by the company, on January 11, that there were “accounting inconsistencies” in the around R$ 20 billion on the balance sheet.

In a statement released to the market by the company’s new management on June 13, Saicali was identified as one of the participants in the fraud, alongside Miguel Gutierrez, the company’s former CEO, and former directors José Timótheo de Barros and Márcio Cruz Meirelles , in addition to other executives.

Saicali’s defense denied that the transfer of assets was intended to protect her assets from possible measures resulting from investigations and “was due to succession planning motivated by health issues”.

The first former executives to be heard by the CPI will be the former CEO, Miguel Gutierrez, and Fabio Abrate, which should happen in August, after the parliamentary recess. In addition, representatives of KPMG and PwC, companies that audited Americanas’ balance sheets during the fraud period, must also participate.

The other executives will be heard afterwards, as well as representatives of the banks.

Regarding financial institutions, Ribeiro pointed out that “great care is needed so as not to turn victims into culprits”. “Of course we’re going to be listening to the banks as well, to see what the banks’ version is throughout this entire episode.”

Five months after Americanas released the material fact talking about accounting inconsistencies, the company released a report admitting the fraud.

According to the report, fraud occurred when contracting bonuses with the industry – a common practice in retail, when manufacturers give discounts for large orders, which the report identified as “cooperative advertising budget contracts and similar instruments (VPC)”. .

The discounts would never have happened and even so they appeared to improve the retailer’s balance sheet. In addition, to meet payments to suppliers, the previous management took out loans without the knowledge of the board of directors and irregularly accounted for them.

Preliminary and unaudited numbers indicate a fraud of BRL 25 billion.

Since the fraud was revealed until May 2023, Americanas had a drop of about 9.9% in the active customer base, from 49.1 million to 44.2 million in the interval. The retailer closed 43 stores from January 2023 to June 18, reaching 1,837 units in the country, a decrease of 2.3% in the period.