Read this Friday’s edition of the FolhaMercado newsletter (14) – 04/14/2023 – Market

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Lula wants to end dependency on the dollar

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) defended, during Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration at Banco do Brics, the expansion of trade in the institution’s own currencies — and even a currency from the Brics group.

• “Who decided it was the dollar? We need to have a currency that transforms countries into a slightly more peaceful situation, because today a country needs to run after the dollar to export,” said the president.

Understand: Lula’s objective is to prevent countries from depending only on the dollar for transactions, a currency whose quotation varies according to a series of circumstances.

Brazil has a partnership in this regard with China. Last month, they announced the creation of a “Clearing House”, a banking institution that allows business and lending to be done between the two countries without the dollar having to be used.

• In Brazil, the ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) guarantees entrepreneurs the immediate conversion of their earnings into real, if they decide to close deals in yuan.

• On Wednesday (12), the ICBC announced that it had made the first transaction in Chinese currency.

Yes but… There are dozens of institutions of this type in the world, but they alone will not end countries’ dependence on the US currency.

• “You need, for example, a certain depth and liquidity in the financial markets, the availability of dollars for financing, to provide resources for trade,” he said.

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How L’Oréal snapped up Aesop

L’Oréal won competition from luxury giant LVMH, skin care companies Shiseido and Clarins and funds Permira and Primavera to stay with Aesop, for US$ 2.53 billion (R$ 12.65 billion)in a deal announced at the beginning of the month.

• The Australian brand of premium skin and hair products belonged to Natura, which at the beginning of the negotiations wanted to keep a portion of the business, but was convinced otherwise by L’Oréal executives, according to the New York Times.

• The two companies already knew each other since Natura bought The Body Shop from the French group, in 2017.

The strategies:

• L’Oréalwhich is the world leader in sales of cosmetics, is betting that it will be able to use its size to boost its newest purchase and double or triple the brand’s sales in a few years.

Aesop is not a fading brand, far from it.

• With annual growth of more than 20%, analysts say its positioning in the luxury clean beauty space – two of the most promising segments – and its growth potential make it a strong acquisition.

Founded in 1909the French group has a history of acquiring smaller and stronger brands, taking advantage of its marketing and distribution power to expand them.

• In 2017, it bought skincare brand CeraVe for $1.3 billion and built it into a phenomenon among younger consumers through smart social media marketing.

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take a break

The film tells the story of the fight over the rights to distribute the popular game “Tetris”, which has the context of the Cold War and the crisis of communism.

Understand: it all starts when Dutch game developer Henk Rogers sees the game at a fair, realizes it was something out of the ordinary, and goes after its creator.

• He is software engineer Alexey Pajitnov, who was trying to leave the Soviet Union in the midst of the bloc’s imminent fall, but still working for a Soviet company.

• The dispute over the rights to distribute the game still involves other entrepreneurs, who had had access to the game and distributed it in other countries – despite knowing that the production did not belong to them.

• But the Dutchman had an ace up his sleeve: his connection with the then president of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi, who let him know that the Game Boy was about to be released.

• Rogers then goes to Pajitnov’s country to negotiate directly with him and convinces him to make the game available on the portable device – the problem is that he had not agreed with the Russians.

Still on the history of “Tetris”the documentary miniseries “Death in Silicon Valley” arrived this week on HBO Max and Discovery +.

• She investigates the brutal deaths of Vladimir Pokhiko, who is credited with co-creating the game alongside Pajitnov, his wife and son.