Gleisi says that Petrobras shareholders “made a lot of money” with Lula’s government

The national president of the PT, federal deputy Gleisi Hoffmann (PR), criticized this Tuesday (12) Petrobras shareholders who, according to her, are “crying in the media” after the state-owned company lost market value. Last week, the company announced that it will not pay extraordinary dividends, frustrating the financial market. The decision had a negative impact on the company, which fell 10% in the Ibovespa trading session and lost R$55.3 billion in market value on Friday (9).

Gleisi minimized the investors’ reaction and said that they made “a lot of money with the appreciation of the company under the government” of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). “Petrobras shareholders, who are crying in the media, made a lot, a lot of money with the company’s appreciation during the Lula government,” said the parliamentarian in a publication on X.

“The loss of R$55 billion in market value is just ¼ of the more than R$200 billion that it has valued in the last 12 months. Petrobras’ common share, which closed at R$35.5 yesterday, was worth R$24.19 exactly one year ago, just over half of yesterday. And today it opened rising again,” he added.

In the midst of the crisis, Lula met with the president of the oil company, Jean Paul Prates, and with ministers Fernando Haddad (Finance), Alexandre Silveira (Mines and Energy) and Rui Costa (Casa Civil) to discuss the extraordinary dividends. Silveira highlighted that the resumption of payment can be evaluated “at the appropriate time”.

The Chief Executive declared, before the meeting, that Petrobras should not only think about shareholders and criticized the “crying of the market”. “What I think is that Petrobras, which is a company in which the government has ascendancy over it, is important to take into account the following: Petrobras is not just a company that thinks about the shareholders who invest in it, because Petrobras has to think about investment and think about 200 million Brazilians who are owners of this company or partners in this company”, said Lula in an interview with SBT.