Edemar Cid Ferreira, founder of Banco Santos, dies – 01/13/2024 – Market

Edemar Cid Ferreira, founder and former controller of the bankrupt Banco Santos and who became famous as a collector of works of art and for the extravagant mansion he built in Morumbi, a neighborhood in the west of São Paulo, died this Saturday (13), aged 80, in the capital of São Paulo.

Cid Ferreira died of a heart attack while sleeping. He left a wife and three children.

The former banker became a constant name in the Brazilian news in the 2000s, when Banco Santos suffered intervention from the Central Bank, following a R$2.1 billion loss (values ​​at the time) in the company’s cash flow.

On November 12, 2004, the BC intervened in the institution after finding that it did not comply with basic standards, such as compulsory deposits — the portion of customer deposits that financial institutions are obliged to collect from the BC. At the time, Santos was the 21st largest bank in the country.

On May 4 of the following year, the BC announced the liquidation of the institution.

Since then, Cid Ferreira has tried to reverse the court’s decision, arguing that the business went bankrupt due to people who did not honor the payments on loans made at the bank.

Cid Ferreira and 18 other former directors of Banco Santos were charged by the Federal Public Ministry for money laundering, conspiracy and fraudulent management.

In May 2006, the former banker was arrested for 89 days. During this period, he dedicated himself to spiritual life and even attended courses taught in the prison by evangelical churches, the Catholic Church and others on spiritualism. But Edemar did not join any faith.

“Since leaving Marist school, in Santos, as a teenager, he was away from religion,” he told Sheet at the time one of his lawyers, Ricardo Tepedino.

Edemar’s routine in prison, according to the lawyer, was also filled with reading and working in the prison laundry.

In 2020, the former banker’s famous mansion located on Rua Gália, in the Morumbi neighborhood, and which belonged to the bank’s bankrupt estate, was sold at a judicial auction for R$27.5 million.

Built between 2000 and 2004, and acquired for R$140 million, the house was designed by architect Ruy Ohtake, who received R$1.15 million for the service. North American decorator Peter Marino received another R$8.86 million. It was full of works of art —Edemar was also president of the São Paulo Biennial.

The property went through five auctions to be sold. In the first two, there were no interested parties. In May 2019, in the third auction, the property was sold for R$23.3 million. But the buyer, whose name was not revealed, did not deposit the amount within the period stipulated by the auctioneer.

In the fourth auction, the mansion was sold for R$9 million, but judge Paulo Furtado de Oliveira Filho, from the 2nd Bankruptcy and Judicial Recovery Court of SP, did not accept the value.

The property, which occupied an 8,000 square meter plot of land and a five-story complex in an area of ​​4,100 square meters, had two art galleries, with a ceiling height of nine meters, a library and a helipad.

Glass bathrooms with technology that changes color when occupied, marble imported from France and pneumatic elevators also made up the mansion.

In the same year, around 2,000 pieces that belonged to the businessman and were seized by the courts in the year of Banco Santos’ bankruptcy, were auctioned to raise funds to pay the financial institution’s creditors.

At the time, the former banker asked the Court to cancel the event for the collection of works of art that were under the custody of the MAC (Museum of Contemporary Art) at USP (University of São Paulo). In a letter sent to the 2nd Bankruptcy and Judicial Recovery Court of the city of São Paulo, he argued that the auction would dismember the collection, devaluing the set and causing the works to lose market value.

In October last year, Mônica Bergamo’s column showed that the dispute between Cid Ferreira, the debtors of Banco Santos and the judicial administrator of the bankrupt estate gained a new chapter. The dispute occurred over who would provisionally manage the assets sought to pay off the R$2.1 billion in bankruptcy.

The bankrupt estate claimed that part of the amount be paid off through the seizure of half of the Eldorado shopping mall, located in the west zone of São Paulo. A court decision from March 2023 approved the seizure of 50% of the commercial establishment, but an appeal was possible.

When contacted, lawyers from Grupo Veríssimo, second largest creditor of Banco Santos, stated, in a note, that the amount of R$2.1 billion has already been removed by the Judiciary and that the current balance of the debt is R$120 million.

More recently, in December, the Panel SA column reported that the São Paulo Court authorized the payment of a debt of R$ 120 million by the Veríssimo Group to Banco Santos, putting an end to a years-long dispute that had been holding up the settlement of accounts with other creditors.

Now, the expectation is that the Court will authorize the auction of around R$500 million in outstanding credits. There are several banks interested in the business.

The former banker also owned a 3,000 square meter apartment in Praia Grande (SP), which was sold for R$78 million after four auctions.

Since then, he has been living “in favor” and living with the help of friends. From the mansion in Morumbi, she moved to the neighboring house, which belonged to Zizinho Papa, former banker who owned Banco Lavras.

At that time, he said that, every night, he sat in a chair on the pool deck of the house where he lived and spent hours looking at his mansion.

He was outraged by the lack of maintenance at his old residence. He complained about the soot that, over time, stained and darkened the white marble that covered the walls of the house.

Edemar spent the rest of his life trying to prove that the bank had more credit to recover than debts to be paid, which was never proven.

This clash resulted in a relationship of permanent tension between Edemar and the judicial administrator, Vânio Aguiar.