Rial received BRL 600 thousand until taking over Americanas – 02/15/2023 – Market

Even before officially assuming the presidency of Americanas, on January 1, 2023, executive Sergio Rial provided “strategic consulting” services to the retailer, between September 1 and December 31, 2022. BRL 600 thousand.

The information was published by columnist Lauro Jardim, from O Globo, and confirmed by Sheet.

The contract for the provision of strategic consulting services was signed between Americanas SA and SXR Consulting (Rial’s company).

In a note released by his press office, Rial states that “CEO succession processes, in general, are remunerated for the hours worked before the official assumption of the position.”

“I dedicated several hours of work to better understand the company’s trajectory, visit the logistics centers and, above all, understand the challenge of a company that had gone through a recent merger between B2W and Lojas Americanas”, he said (read the note in full at the end of the text).

A Sheet found out with specialists in management and careers, however, that this is not the common practice in the market, even among high-ranking executives.

The president of a large company interviewed by the report on condition of anonymity –which has already gone through several transition periods in the industry, services and financial sectors– informed that, in general, executives do not receive anything until they take over: after all, they will already be presidents and it is part of the “homework” of each one to take hold of the finances and strategies of the company they will lead.

Between the announcement of Rial as the next president of Americanas (on August 19 of last year), until his inauguration, on January 1, 2023, there were four months and 12 days. This is too long a period in succession processes, said this executive, whose transition intervals lasted a month at most.

Karin Parodi, partner at Career Center, a career management and leadership development consultancy, agrees. “In general, between the announcement and the inauguration, the executive asks for a maximum of one or two months, either to take a vacation or to prepare his successor in the company he is leaving”, says Karin.

There are even cases in which the company pays “entry bonuses” to the executive, who would receive the amount from the former contractor, as a way of attracting him to the new position, says Karin. But, in this example, it is an employment contract as president – ​​which would no longer make sense for Rial, who resigned from the executive presidency of Santander Brasil in December 2021.

According to the executive’s advisory, he signed a contract as a consultant for Americanas, effective for four months (September to December 2022), and another as president of the retailer, which took effect on January 1 of this year.

“Cases of providing consultancy are much less common when an offer has already been made to occupy a position in the company”, says Karin, who has more than 20 years in the area of ​​career management.

The fact increases speculation about how much Sergio Rial knew about the Americanas accounting scandal before taking office. He always denied that he knew anything and that the balance sheet problems were discovered in 11 days of work as CEO.

In a material fact published on the night of January 11, he resigned after finding “accounting inconsistencies” in the amount of R$20 billion in Americanas’ financial statements. The fact triggered one of the biggest corporate crises in the country’s history, and led the retailer to enter into judicial recovery just eight days later, on January 19, with declared debts of R$ 43 billion.

After that, Rial said he would advise the trio of Americanas’ main shareholders – the billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Beto Sicupira, founders of 3G Capital. Today, however, he says he is no longer an advisor to the trio, although financial market sources tell Sheet that he continues to act on the case behind the scenes.

Rial presided over Santander Brasil until the end of 2021, and continued as chairman of the bank’s board until last month. Santander is one of Americanas’ biggest creditors, with R$3.6 billion to be received.

A Sheet learned from sources close to the creditor banks that the command of the Spanish bank, in Madrid, demanded Rial’s resignation when it learned that there was a conflict of interest between its then chairman in Brazil and a client company.

The full text of the executive’s note follows:

“The CEO succession processes, in general, are done with transition periods (on boarding), remunerated by the hours worked before the official investiture in the position.

Americanas announced the transition of CEOs in August 2022, to provide full transparency to the process, and during the months of September to December, I dedicated several hours of work to learn more about the company’s history, visit the logistics centers and, above all, understand the challenge of a company that had recently gone through a merger between B2W and Lojas Americanas. My time, during this period, was also destined to have the dimension of the cyber attack that the company experienced, what was its growth agenda, and the way in which it could better focus on the positioning of AME Digital.

I only took over the company on January 2, 2023, starting a new fiscal year. The previous CEO ended his tenure on 12/31/22, remaining as its president and agent until that date.”