BNDES is not a corporate hospital and will not help American companies, says Mercadante – 02/15/2023 – Market

The president of the BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development), Aloizio Mercadante, said this Wednesday (15) that the bank does not plan any direct action to help Americanas as it is not a “corporate hospital”.

“There is no possibility of dealing with the Americanas crisis. What we had to do we already did, we executed the bail and recovered our capital”, he said.

Mercadante, however, indicated that he intends to discuss the opening of a line of credit for small suppliers of the retailer, which entered into judicial recovery due to billionaire debts.

“It is up to the CVM, to the Central Bank, to rigorously assess what happened. The main partners have a very expressive capital volume to save the company, and above all to protect the investment funds, the 40 thousand workers and the micro and small companies that are suppliers”, said Mercadante.

“What we can do is discuss with Febraban and the Ministry of Finance, and the financial system open a line of credit for these small suppliers who are victims of this fraud”, he added.

The BNDES president avoided setting a deadline for advancing discussions on the matter and did not give details of how the credit line would work.

“They [pequenas fornecedoras] bear no responsibility for the Americanas crisis. They were victims of a lawsuit. The signs of balance sheet fraud are very serious,” she said.

Mercadante said that Americanas has no delays with the development bank. “The BNDES had a credit line with Americanas for BRL 2.4 billion. They still had a pending amount of BRL 1.2 billion, but the BNDES was prudent, it had a letter of guarantee, it has already been executed, it has already been paid . We don’t have a real at risk with Americanas”.

The statements were given by Mercadante in a press conference after the meeting for the reinstallation of Cofa (Guiding Committee of the Amazon Fund). It was the committee’s first meeting since 2018, according to the bank. The meeting took place at the BNDES headquarters, in Rio de Janeiro.

Re-opened by the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva government, Cofa’s attributions include establishing the guidelines and criteria for the application of resources obtained by the fund, which aims at environmental preservation and the fight against deforestation.