Americanas postpones delivery of the 2022 balance sheet – 03/24/2023 – Market

Americanas said this Friday (24th) that it will postpone the delivery of the 2022 income statement, originally scheduled for the next 29th. the 31st for delivery of the balance sheet for the fourth quarter of last year, together with the consolidated results for 2022.

In a material fact, the retailer said that the reason for the postponement is the need to conclude “the effects of inconsistencies in accounting entries reducing the supplier account in the
financial statements of the company, related to the fiscal years already closed, including the
fiscal year ended on December 31, 2022″.

According to Americanas, the review will “ensure that the financial statements adequately reflect the equity and financial position of the company and its subsidiaries, and take place in parallel with the investigation of the circumstances that caused the aforementioned accounting inconsistencies, conducted by the Independent Committee” , completed.

The statement also says that its AGO (Ordinary General Assembly) will be held on April 29. Normally, in this event, the financial results of the previous year are analyzed. Americanas stated, however, that “the examination, discussion and voting of the financial statements for the 2022 fiscal year will be resolved at an Extraordinary General Meeting [AGE] to be called in due course.”

According to accounting and auditing specialists interviewed by the Sheet, Americanas must resort to rule 23 of the Accounting Pronouncements Committee (CPC) to review previous balance sheets. “The norm deals with accounting policies, changes in estimates and correction of errors in financial statements”, says lawyer Eduardo Natal, specialist in tax law, partner at Natal & Manssur.

“When it comes to rectifying errors in financial statements, the company needs to identify the origin of the error – in which year it happened – and resubmit all balance sheets since then, with the necessary corrections”, says tax consultant Leandro Cossalter, from Ecovis WFA.

In a presentation to BTG investors on January 12, the day after the publication of the material fact in which he revealed the existence of “accounting inconsistencies” in the order of R$ 20 billion in Americanas’ balance sheets in recent years, the former president of the retailer , Sergio Rial, stated that it was not about “three or four years, at least seven, maybe ten”.

The origin of the inconsistencies, which led the company to enter into judicial recovery with declared debts of BRL 43 billion, was in the accounting of the withdrawn risk – the operations of advances to suppliers carried out by partner banks of the retailer. “In companies with narrower margins, [o risco sacado] is particularly important because it can lead to bank debt, which is now characterized as a supplier account”, said Rial in the presentation.

“Hence, in a combination of diligence and also of experience, I realize that a good part of that Americanas supplier account was, essentially, bank debt, which therefore will have to be cataloged as such”, said the former CEO, adding that he would not be able to to answer “the genesis of motivation”.

“What I can understand is that, for any company, it is much better to have a supplier account than to add this financing structure to its bank debt,” he said. Rial has already been heard by the CVM investigation and should testify, next month, to Justice in São Paulo, as well as the former president of Americanas, Miguel Gutierrez, who remained in office for 20 years.

Technical problems took old balance sheets offline, says company

Americanas SA was formed from the merger between Lojas Americanas and B2W, announced in April 2021. The companies’ financial statements were integrated as of this year, when their corporate structure was also simplified, when the trio of billionaires controlling the company –Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Beto Sicupira– went from holding more than 50% of the company to becoming “reference shareholders”, with around 30%. Americanas is now listed on B3’s Novo Market, where companies with the best corporate governance practices are listed.

The company’s investor relations page then began to present all the balance sheets of the former Lasa (physical stores) and those of B2W (online operations). The CVM recommends that, in the event of a merger, the company maintains the balance sheets of both companies for at least three years prior to the transaction on the investor relations page.

A Sheet found, however, that on February 5, a Sunday, Lasa’s balance sheets from 2020 onwards had ceased to be presented. There was consolidated data for 2020 under the name “Universo Americanas”, bringing together physical store operations and online sales. Prior to that, only B2W balance sheets were presented.

questioned by Sheet last month, the company said, at first, that the balance sheets of B2W already presented the consolidated numbers. The report found, however, that the numbers were only for the online operation.

This month, around the 15th, the balance sheets of the former Lasa, up to the year 2000, were once again published.

Questioned once again by Sheetthe company responded, through its press office, that “some sections of its IR website were temporarily unavailable due to technical problems on the page’s hosting server. , which has already resolved the issue.”

The report questioned the company for how long the technical problems were observed, but Americanas did not return until the publication of this text.

Throughout the period, the retailer’s financial statements could normally be consulted on the CVM website, where the balance sheets of all publicly-held companies are filed.

In case of delay in delivering the balance sheet, according to the CVM, the company is subject to a daily fine. The fine should not be applied if the company is bankrupt or in liquidation. The SEP (Superintendence of Corporate Relations) also publishes, every six months, on the CVM website, the list of companies in arrears of at least three months in fulfilling periodic obligations with the autarchy, such as the disclosure of balance sheets.

“But, in the case of a company undergoing judicial recovery, the deadlines remain the same as for other publicly-held companies”, says lawyer Filipe Denki, a specialist in judicial recovery. “In the recovery, the company must provide the trustee, on a monthly basis, with the statements of monthly accounts, which include balance sheets, current account extracts and copies of the accounting books”, he says.