Coesa, former OAS, has bankruptcy decreed by the Court – 06/27/2023 – Market

The judicial reorganization (RJ) of Coesa, part of the former construction company OAS, was converted into bankruptcy by the Reserved Chamber of Business Law of the TJSP (Court of Justice of São Paulo).

The appeal was judged this Tuesday (27), and the judges granted it, decreeing the bankruptcy of the companies under reorganization (the companies of the Coesa group), with determination and unanimous vote. Among the creditors is Gerdau, in addition to other suppliers and banks.

The creditors argued that the OAS actions that resulted in the opening of Coesa’s recovery were fraudulent.

Contacted throughout this Tuesday, Coesa had not returned contacts until the publication of this report.

The case files containing details of the decision are not yet available for consultation, according to the TJSP press office.

Coesa is a company that emerged from the split of the former OAS, founded in 1976 and which ran into difficulties after becoming one of those investigated in Operation Lava Jato.

Coesa filed for judicial recovery in 2021. At the time, the proposal was accepted by labor creditors, small companies and unsecured creditors (which hold most of the credits). The debts inherited from OAS are around R$4.5 billion.

In addition to the company, the corporate restructuring of OAS gave rise to Metha, which, as the creditors claimed, would have stayed with the “good part of OAS” —the contracts—, while Coesa stayed with the debts.

Creditors involved in OAS’s recovery request, prior to the dismemberment and ended in 2020, questioned Coesa’s RJ process.

They complain that the engineering company would not have fulfilled promises of the original recovery before the new company filed the new order for RJ shortly thereafter.

Also in 2021, creditors promised to file an “avalanche” of appeals against the inclusion of credits in Coesa’s recovery process, with the aim of avoiding renegotiating the receipt of amounts still due.

At the time, Coesa argued that the approval of the judicial recovery would lead to the preservation of around 15 thousand direct and indirect jobs.

Also according to the request for recovery, Coesa’s liabilities were greater than its capacity to generate wealth, “making judicial recovery necessary, because the Brazilian infrastructure and heavy engineering sector did not observe the expected growth from 2015”.

In addition to an unfavorable political and macroeconomic environment for investments in the sector, the situation has worsened with the pandemic, the company claimed in its request.

The plan provided for the payment of credits through the construction company’s cash generation and the receipt of indemnities related to a set of arbitrations inherited from OAS.

The disputes were related to three projects: the Rodoanel de São Paulo, the Abreu e Lima refinery (PE), and a road project in Trinidad and Tobago.

---

X-RAY | COESA SA
Net loss in 2021: BRL 11.057 million
Employees: 658 (direct)
Main competitors: Acciona, Construcap, Mendes Júnior, Novonor