Who are the first creditors of the owners of 123milhas – 09/06/2023 – Market

123milhas and HotMilhas owe BRL 105 million to the Soares Madureira and Goulart families, to which the founders of the business, the brothers Ramiro Julio and Augusto Julio Soares Madureira, belong, including themselves.

According to a survey by DeltaFolha, the data center of Sheet, the biggest individual creditor on the list is businessman Alexandre Ferreira Goulart, first cousin of Augusto and Ramiro, who has R$ 10.25 million to receive from the group. The company entered into judicial recovery.

Alexandre is the son of Maria Luzia Goulart, an aunt on his mother’s side of Augusto and Ramiro. Maria Luiza also appears among the creditors, but with a much smaller amount to be received: R$ 440 thousand.

Alexandre’s wife is the architect Aline Rodrigues Santos Goulart, to whom the tourism platform owes BRL 2.65 million.

Alexandre and Aline own a perfumery business in the interior of Minas Gerais, which includes franchises of the O Boticário group. While Aline has an architecture office and real estate business, Alexandre works in the agricultural business and comes from a family in the furniture industry, owner of Lojas Goulart.

On social media, Aline says she has “20 years of experience in high-end commercial and residential projects”.

Owner of the AG Arquitetura e Design office, which operates in Piumhi and Escarpas do Lago, both in Minas Gerais, Aline was contacted by Sheet to comment on her and her husband’s connection with the cousins’ business at 123milhas. However, Aline disconnected the call as soon as the reporter identified herself.

The Soares Madureiras are from a traditional family from Piumhi. The surname Soares is linked to the mother of the owners, while Madureira comes from the father.

On the maternal side, the family owns farms, gasoline distributors and stores. The fortune came from his maternal grandfather, also Ramiro Julio —who now names a street in the center of Piumhi, a city of 38,000 inhabitants 266 kilometers from Belo Horizonte.

A DeltaFolha survey shows that the list of creditors for the group —which involves the 123milhas tourism platform and the Hotmilhas miles purchase and sale site— adds up to R$2.304 billion and around 700,000 names, including individuals and companies.

This amount is R$ 4.8 million lower than that presented by the company in its request for judicial recovery on the last 29th, of R$ 2.308 billion.

Sought to explain the difference, 123milhas replied, through a press office, that “questions about values ​​and classifications of credits will be discussed throughout the judicial recovery, observing the procedure of the Bankruptcy and Judicial Recovery Law”.

According to the company, “any value or credit classification will be considered unquestionable only after the final and unappealable decision of any qualifications, divergences or credit challenges”.

The company did not respond to inquiries about the nature of the company’s debts to relatives of the founders.

The owners’ holding alone has BRL 82 million to receive

There are around R$ 17 million in labor debts, R$ 20 million with micro and small companies. The vast majority of creditors are unsecured – without a real guarantee of receipt, which add up to around R$ 2.2 billion.

This class includes consumers who felt aggrieved by packages and trips purchased and not completed, suppliers such as agencies and tour operators, hotels, inns, as well as banks, media companies and digital platforms such as Google and Facebook.

AMRM, the holding of non-financial institutions created by Ramiro and Augusto in December 2022, is in the unsecured class, as shown by the Sheet. In the general list of creditors, AMRM is the one with the second highest amount receivable: R$ 82.07 million, just behind Banco do Brasil (R$ 97.1 million).

In the opinion of consultant André Pimentel, a partner at Performa Partners, it is a sign that the business was facing difficulties and operations between the shareholders and the company were already taking place, with the aim of providing liquidity to the group.

“It is a way of guaranteeing that this liquidity is protected: instead of making a capitalization, they lent money”, he says.

In a capitalization, according to Pimentel, the contribution to the company is definitive — there is no expectation that the money will return to the owner. “But when you take out a loan, the company owes you,” he says.

“If they truly believed that the business needed money and the solution would come, they could have made a capitalization. Putting money through debt was a less risky alternative for the owners”, says the consultant. According to him, the creation of AMRM indicates possible financial difficulties.

Pimentel points out that, when there are related parties on the list of creditors, that is, the owners themselves, these people lose the right to vote in a meeting of creditors in their respective class, to prevent a “biased” vote.

“Companies of this size, even without public capital, should already be subject to the obligation to have their results audited”, says the consultant. “It is a business that took a very large proportion, harmed many consumers, but there is no transparency about the company’s operation.”

A year ago, the newspaper O Globo reported that the company was looking for a partner-investor, a mission given to the BTG Pactual bank —which, however, was not successful in the endeavor, since the main interested parties, the tourism companies , are still recovering from the impact of the pandemic.

The Soares Madureira brothers were willing to sell 30% of the business for US$ 100 million (R$ 490 million). In 2022, 123milhas earned around BRL 5 billion.

Debts with the tax authorities add up to R$ 56.5 million

In tax debts, the company totals R$ 56.5 million (R$ 41.6 million from 123milhas and R$ 14.8 million from HotMilhas). Of the total, the largest debt is with the INSS (National Institute of Social Security), in the amount of R$ 34.3 million.

According to Filipe Denki, a lawyer specializing in judicial recovery, from Lara Martins Advogados, tax debt is not subject to judicial recovery.

“It is a condition for obtaining the concession of recovery the presentation of the negative tax certificate or positive with negative effect, after the approval of the judicial recovery plan”, says Denki.

In these cases, according to him, the law provides special conditions for the treatment of the tax credit, with installments, for example.

In Denki’s opinion, when the company decided to suspend the sale of tickets and promotional packages on August 18, it already knew that it would file for bankruptcy, 11 days later.

“Trigger events that occurred before the request for judicial recovery are all subject to judicial recovery”, he says.

Founded in 2016 in Belo Horizonte by brothers Ramiro Julio and Augusto Julio Soares Madureira, 123milhas also owns Maxmilhas, acquired in January of this year.

The operation grew quickly and, in 2021, the company became the largest advertiser in the country, with a contribution of BRL 2.37 billion in the purchase of advertising space. Last year, according to the Agências & Anunciantes ranking, published by the newspaper Meio & Mensagem, 123milhas was the second largest advertiser, with investments of R$ 1.28 billion.

For experts, the mistake made by 123milhas was to follow in the footsteps of Hurb (formerly Hotel Urbano) and start, during the pandemic, selling “flexible” tickets and packages (with no set date and, therefore, cheaper).

The business model is considered extremely risky, as it is not possible to predict ticket prices. The soaring ticket prices would have been one of the pillars of the company’s financial crisis, according to 123milhas itself.

See the list of the 50 largest creditors here