Rui Costa: Petrobras remunerated shareholders like Santa Claus – 06/20/2023 – Market

The Minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa, compared this Tuesday (20) the volume of dividends paid by Petrobras in recent years to gifts distributed by “Santa Claus”. According to him, this orientation has changed so that the state-owned company starts investing to generate jobs.

“About Petrobras and dividends, I would say that it is an attack against the Brazilian population because no private company in the world, in any sector, distributes an amount that is proportional to its revenues, to its economic profile”, he said during lunch with the Frente Parliamentarian for Entrepreneurship.

“A good part of the results of the companies is reinvested so that they continue to be a reference in the sector in which they operate”, he said.

In his view, if the big technology companies had distributed dividends like Petrobras, they would not be companies like the ones seen today.

“Any company in the world takes the highest volume to reinvest and continue being strong and valuing its company’s shareholders and not distributing as if it were Santa Claus distributing toys at the end of the year,” he said.

“That [volume de dividendos] it is a disservice to Petrobras, a disservice to the nation. And I repeat, we did a comparative study with publicly traded private companies in the world. There is no reference in the world of someone who has done what they did with Petrobras”, he said. “Therefore, the orientation has changed and will be investing, Petrobras will invest to generate jobs, strengthen itself and become an energy company”.

Petrobras was the second largest payer of dividends in the world in 2022, according to a survey carried out by resource manager Janus Henderson, with the distribution of US$ 21.7 billion (about R$ 100 billion, at the current exchange rate) to its shareholders.

The state’s high dividends reflected a change in the shareholder remuneration policy in 2019 and were driven by the rise in oil prices after the most critical period of the pandemic. They were targets of criticism from both the Jair Bolsonaro government (PL) and the opposition and are now in the sights of Lula (PT).

In its semi-annual report on shareholder remuneration, Janus Henderson points out that, in dollars, the volume of dividends paid by Petrobras grew 138% compared to the previous year, “by far the highest increase in dividends in the world”.

In addition to remunerating shareholders, Petrobras is also the main company that pays dividends to the Treasury. In 2022, the state-owned company’s payments to the Union represented 0.6% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). In second place was the BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development), with 0.2%.

Costa also took advantage of the event to charge the Central Bank for the drop in interest rates. “We are all waiting for the Selic to fall [taxa básica] so that we can celebrate even more expressive growth numbers”.

He still defended a legal change so that it is possible for the government to change the president of the municipality. He cited the example of the United States, saying that change is possible in that country after 12 years in office for the person elected at the ballot box.