BLOOMBERG NEWS REPORT
Petrobras
CEO [Graça Foster] Draws Agitators as Investors Await Replacement
Corruption Warnings
Ruling Party
Disrupted Routine
‘Big Name’
Petrobras
CEO [Graça Foster] Draws Agitators as Investors Await Replacement
Source
/ Fonte: Portal BLOOMBERG NEWS
February 4, 2015; 2:00 AM BRT.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-04/petrobras-ceo-draws-agitators-to-doorstep-as-resignation-looms
Blog editor note: This photo (found in Google images) was not part of the original Bloomberg's publication and is placed here just to illustrate the matter, without any other purpose.
(Bloomberg) [February 4, 2015; 2:00 AM BRT] - The day after Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s embattled Chief Executive Officer
Maria das Gracas Foster met with
Brazil’s president and dozens of protesters picketed her house, she is out of a
job.
Foster, 61, and five members of her
management team resigned Wednesday, state-run Petrobras said in a one-sentence
statement.
The oil
producer, once a source of national pride and symbol of Brazil’s arrival as an
emerging-market powerhouse, gained almost $6 billion in market value Tuesday on
speculation Foster would be replaced, and continued to rally Wednesday after
the company confirmed her departure.
“The
president is fully committed to trying to avoid Petrobras being a drag on
growth and potentially to diminishing her own political liability,” Christopher
Garman, head of emerging-markets research at political risk consultancy Eurasia
Group, and dual citizen of Brazil and the U.S., said by phone from Washington
before the resignations were announced. “Turnover in leadership kind of
mitigates both of those risks.”
Dozens
banged pots, blew whistles and waved flags in front of Foster’s apartment a
block from Copacabana beach Tuesday evening to demand she step down. The
people, mainly from nearby upscale neighborhoods, were protesting Brazil’s
biggest graft scandal as police stood to the side and a huddle of security
guards barred the entrance.
The Rio de
Janeiro-based oil company said it will hold a board meeting Feb. 6 to elect
replacements for Foster and the five managers, whom it did not name.
Petrobras’s press office declined to comment further when contacted by
telephone.
Corruption Warnings
Federal
police are investigating allegations that a cartel of construction companies
fixed bids on the producer’s contracts and bribed executives during a span
stretching back to when President Dilma Rousseff served as Petrobras chairwoman
from 2003 to 2010.
Foster, a
frequent guest at the Alvorada presidential palace in Brasilia, is confronting
allegations she ignored corruption warnings from subordinates. The prosecutor
general and opposition politicians have called for her to step down.
“I’m
indignant,” said Rizzia Arrieiro, a 35-year-old dentist who helped organize the
protest in front of Foster’s home. “Petrobras was the pride of Brazil, and now
it’s transforming into a company that lost its value completely. We’re here to
demand Gracas Foster be fired and a new board be instituted.”
Foster said
in December she had offered to resign three times and would wait on a decision
from Rousseff.
One
protester in an orange jumpsuit, like the uniform used on Petrobras’ deep-water
rigs, alternated between sporting a clown nose and a Rousseff mask that some
Carnival revelers are wearing during this month’s festivities.
Ruling Party
Residents
peered out from windows of neighboring buildings, some banging on pots
themselves and chanting “Get out, P.T.!” as the ruling Workers’ Party, or
Partido dos Trabalhadores, is known.
As a plunge
in Petrobras’ stock, delays in reporting graft-related writedowns and
debt-rating cuts has made Petrobras one of the most volatile major oil stocks,
Luiz Moraes, a retired public servant, is concerned rising gasoline prices will
stoke inflation and leave ordinary folk to pay the bill.
“The entire
world is lowering gasoline prices, but not here,” said Moraes, 60. “It’s
absurd.”
Petrobras
has said it will maintain fuel prices this year despite cheaper imports to help
preserve cash until it regains access to international debt markets. The
government recently introduced a fuel tax it had temporarily suspended in 2014,
increasing prices at the pump.
Disrupted Routine
The biggest
corruption scandal in Brazil’s history has handicapped Petrobras’ ability to
carry out routine functions such as releasing financial results and borrowing
from international debt markets.
Auditors are
waiting for independent investigators to calculate the size of graft-related
losses before signing off on 2014 financial statements. The company can’t sell
bonds until it reports the results, prompting it to cut investments by about a
third this year.
Petrobras’
stock rose 15 percent to 10 reais in Sao Paulo Tuesday, the steepest increase
since September 1998, paring to 27 percent its decline since the November
arrests of about two dozen people suspected of money laundering and other
crimes in the corruption scandal. It was up 6.3 percent to 10.63 reais at 10:44
a.m. local time.
The
company’s $2.5 billion of notes maturing in 2024 climbed 1.1 cents to 91 cents
on the dollar, even as Fitch Ratings lowered Petrobras’ rating to the lowest
investment grade.
‘Big Name’
“Clearly
news of Graca replacement is causing short-covering. From the fundamentals
point of view, without knowing her substitute, my opinion is that if is not a
very big name, there will be frustration,” Fabio Oliveira, the chief investment
officer at GPS Investimentos Financeiros, which oversees $6.8 billion, said in an
e-mail reply to questions. “I think the move on Petrobras’s shares is very
speculative.”
Foster, 61,
became CEO of Petrobras in 2012 after serving as secretary of oil and natural
gas when Rousseff was energy minister under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Initial
enthusiasm for Foster among investors waned after she failed to eliminate fuel
subsidies that caused more than $44 billion in operating losses from 2011
through the first half of last year. The government controls Petrobras’ board
through a majority of voting shares.
The oil
producer released unaudited third-quarter earnings Jan. 29 showing a 9 percent
drop in profit and said it couldn’t account for the financial impact of the
corruption probe. The losses calculated so far for the period between January
2004 and April 2012 stand at 4.06 billion reais ($1.5 billion), the company
said in a presentation.
To contact
the reporters on this story:
·
Peter Millard in Rio de Janeiro
at: pmillard1@bloomberg.net
To contact
the editors responsible for this story:
·
James Attwood at: jattwood3@bloomberg.net
·
Jim Efstathiou Jr.,
·
Tina Davis
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário