Trump dá 10 dias a Putin para chegar a acordo de tréguas com Ucrânia

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http://www.estadao.com.br/economia/not_eco290489,0.htm

Exposição cambial da Sadia cai para US$ 678 milhões

Segundo presidente do Conselho, companhia começou a semana com US$ 300 milhões a menos em exposições

Tatiana Freitas, da Agência Estado

SÃO PAULO - O presidente do Conselho de Administração da Sadia, Luiz Fernando Furlan, informou nesta segunda-feira, 8, que o valor da exposição líquida da empresa com contratos futuros em dólar caiu para US$ 678 milhões. Na semana passada, a companhia de alimentos tinha informado ao mercado que sua exposição a derivativos estava em US$ 966 milhões. "Abrimos esta semana com US$ 300 milhões a menos em exposições", disse Furlan durante almoço de final de ano com a imprensa.

Segundo Furlan, com as últimas operações, a Sadia está próxima dos limites de sua política de exposição ao mercado futuro, que é equivalente a cerca de 3 meses de exportação. "Estamos praticamente de volta à normalidade", destacou.

Segundo o diretor de Relações com Investidores da Sadia, Welson Teixeira Júnior, a empresa comprou dólares no mercado futuro e antecipou a liquidação de posições em aberto. Teixeira disse que a Sadia tem contratos de derivativos em aberto até setembro de 2009, com a maioria dos vencimentos concentrada em janeiro e fevereiro.

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http://www.estadao.com.br/economia/not_eco292945,0.htm

Aracruz e bancos adiam novamente acordo sobre derivativos

Companhia negocia para definir as condições de pagamento das perdas com operações vinculadas ao câmbio

Agência Estado

SÃO PAULO - A Aracruz informou nesta sexta-feira, 12, em fato relevante, que não chegou a um acordo com as contrapartes sobre a reestruturação dos contratos derivativos firmados pela empresa com os bancos. A companhia tinha anunciado originalmente prazo até 30 de novembro para chegar a um acerto com as instituições financeiras, data que foi prorrogada para 11 de dezembro. "As partes deliberaram dar prosseguimento às mencionadas negociações, sendo certo que a companhia informará ao mercado tão logo sejam elas finalizadas", disse a Aracruz em breve comunicado.

Na quinta, uma fonte envolvida na tentativa de acordo antecipou à Agência Estado que a conclusão das negociações entre Aracruz e instituições financeiras sobre as operações com derivativos contratadas pela fabricante de celulose seria adiada novamente. A fonte, que falou sob condição de anonimato, disse que as conversações podem se arrastar até o início de 2009.



A Aracruz e as instituições financeiras tentam definir quais as condições do pagamento que deverá ser feito pela fabricante de celulose referente às perdas de US$ 2,13 bilhões registradas em operações de derivativos. Esse montante, segundo informou a Aracruz no início do mês passado, equivale a 97% da exposição a derivativos da companhia.

[Expat]

Aracruz Faces $2.13 Billion Deadline Over Derivatives

Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- As Brazil’s real approached a nine- year-high in July, Aracruz Celulose SA told investors its 573 million reais ($244 million) of currency contracts posed no economic or financial risk.

Five months later, the world’s biggest maker of eucalyptus pulp is struggling after the real’s 33 percent tumble against the dollar spurred $2.13 billion of losses and an 84 percent drop in its stock price. The company, based in the city of Aracruz in southeastern Brazil, is being sued by investors for making “clandestine and speculative” bets. Aracruz was seeking to reach an agreement with its banks by today.

Foreign-exchange speculation cost at least eight of Brazil’s largest companies $5 billion, and regulators say as many as 500 businesses could be hurt after the real weakened to 2.3659 per dollar from 1.5545 on Aug. 1. Similar losses by companies from South Korea to Mexico to Kuwait are giving investors more incentives to withdraw from emerging markets as recessions and the seizure in credit markets drive fund managers from riskier assets.

“The feeling that Brazil was untouchable created a hype,” said Mario Paiva, a strategist at Liquidez Corretora, the country’s largest currency derivatives brokerage. “The companies were comfortable taking on this risk because they were sure the real would trade stronger.”

Aracruz, Sadia SA, Brazil’s second-biggest food maker, and Grupo Votorantim, the largest raw materials company, originally used the contracts to lock in profits from exports. As the real doubled in the four years to August this year, they began speculating that the currency would continue to appreciate.

Wrong-Way Bets

When the real started to weaken, the agreements turned into wrong-way bets. Concordia-based Sadia posted a 544.5 million-real writedown for the third quarter on Oct. 29, fired Chief Financial Officer Adriano Lima Ferreira and was left with $2.4 billion worth of contracts at the end of September.

Sao Paulo-based Votorantim spent 2.2 billion reais to settle all currency wagers with banks.

Aracruz set a deadline for today to reach an agreement with banks on how it will pay the $2.13 billion, according to a statement posted on the Brazilian securities regulator’s Web site Dec. 1.

The company may convert what it owes banks to debt or be forced to file for bankruptcy, said Luis Menezes at Gradual Corretora in Sao Paulo, who has traded Brazilian stocks for 25 years.

An outside spokeswoman for Aracruz at SPS Comunicacao in Rio de Janeiro today declined to comment on the status of talks with banks or what the outcome will be.

Biggest Currency Losses

The losses echo what happened in the U.S., where the collapse of subprime mortgages caused credit markets to freeze, left the world’s biggest financial companies with almost $1 trillion of writedowns and losses and caused a slowdown in the world economy. Investors seeking the safest assets drove up the dollar and reduced demand for raw materials. Morgan Stanley predicted last week that Brazil is heading toward a recession.

The Bovespa stock index fell 40 percent this year, its worst annual performance. The real tumbled 23 percent in the past three months, making it the worst performer among the world’s 16 most- traded currencies.

Companies began speculating on the real at the same time investors concluded that the world’s largest developing economies were emerging from decades of boom-and-bust cycles. Stock indexes in Brazil, Russia, India and China more than doubled in 2006 and 2007 and their currencies appreciated more than 10 percent against the dollar.

‘Low Risk’ Operations

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government won an investment-grade rating from Standard & Poor’s in April as inflation dropped to about 5 percent from 6,800 percent in April 1990, economic growth topped 6 percent and foreign exchange reserves surged above $190 billion.

On Aug. 15, when the real closed at 1.638 per dollar, the median estimate of about 100 economists surveyed by the central bank was that the currency would trade at 1.61 at year’s end. When the real collapsed, exporters were unprepared.

“Brazil’s economic situation seemed to signal this possibility didn’t exist,” Sadia Chairman Luiz Fernando Furlan, said in a Nov. 3 interview. “These were operations that seemed low risk.”

South Korean screen-parts maker Taesan LCD Co. collapsed in September after wagers on the won soured as the currency weakened 22 percent against the dollar in the first nine months of the year. Mexican supermarket operator Controladora Comercial Mexicana SAB filed for bankruptcy in October and said last week that claims from foreign-exchange contracts rose to about $2.2 billion following the peso’s 18 percent slump so far this year.

‘Huge Volumes’

In Kuwait, defaults on derivatives worth $1.4 billion led the board of Gulf Bank KSC, the country’s second-biggest lender, to resign. Derivatives are contracts whose value is derived from assets including stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities, or from events such as changes in interest rates or the weather.

Former Brazilian central banker Paulo Vieira da Cunha said in October that potential losses on the contracts could total 60 billion reais, or about 2 percent of the nation’s $1.3 trillion gross domestic product.

“We know there are huge volumes, dozens of billions of dollars in wrong-way contracts, and very few actual announcements of losses,” said Edison Garcia, superintendent of the Sao Paulo- based Association of Capital Market Investors, a group that represents banks and funds investing in Brazil.

Recorded Conversations

Banks that sold the derivatives included Citigroup Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Barclays Plc, Banco UBS Pactual SA, Banco Itau Holding Financeira SA and Uniao de Bancos Brasileiros SA, according to a Nov. 10 regulatory filing by Vicunha Textil SA, which posted a 70 million-real loss from the contracts. Deutsche Bank AG also offered the wagers, according to a presentation by the Frankfurt-based bank.

Buyers knew “very well what they were doing,” Banco Itau Chief Executive Officer Roberto Setubal told reporters in Sao Paulo on Dec. 2. The risks were clearly explained in recorded conversations with clients, he said.

Aracruz, in a July filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said the contracts didn’t “represent a risk from an economic and financial standpoint.” The same month, Sadia said the value at risk for “financial instruments exposed to exchange rate variations” amounted to 241.7 million reais.

Miami Firefighters

Then, on Sept. 25, Aracruz said Chief Financial Officer Isac Zagury had resigned. The company reported a week later that losses on currency bets surpassed the value of 2007 sales. The company’s shares dropped 85 percent this year to 1.88.

Sadia fired Lima as CFO after posting a 760 million-real loss to undo derivatives on Sept. 25, saying he broke investment rules. Calls to Lima’s home seeking comment have gone unanswered since Nov. 4.

Sadia plans to investigate how the investments surpassed internal limits, said Furlan, the company’s chairman and a former trade minister. The stock dropped 64 percent this year to 3.63 reais.

“There was a flaw, possibly intentional, of not informing the moment when things went bad and could have been suspended,” Furlan said after a November shareholder meeting. “Possible collusion will be verified.”

Investors are taking aim. Sadia was accused in a lawsuit filed Nov. 5 in a federal court in Manhattan of failing to disclose to holders of its American depositary receipts that it had entered into currency derivative contracts “far larger” than necessary to hedge against U.S. dollar exposure.

‘Scapegoat’

The City Pension Fund for Firefighters and Police Officers in Miami Beach sued Aracruz in the Southern District of Florida on Nov. 26. Aracruz shareholders voted on Nov. 24 to sue former CFO Zagury.

Zagury’s lawyer, Jose Carlos Osorio, said the derivatives contracts were approved by Aracruz’s board, which was told of every transaction. The board approved in June an increase in the limit for foreign exchange exposure this year to $1 billion from $600 million, Osorio said.

The lawsuit is unjustified because losses were caused by market fluctuations that affected many companies in Brazil, he said.

“The board is trying to find a scapegoat,” Osorio said in a telephone interview. “Nobody can be blamed if the dollar goes from 1.65 to 2.30 in less than two weeks.”

In Bloomberg

Chegou a vez do Brasil. Muitas perdas se avizinham e o Real deve vir por ai abaixo.
Lamentavel que empresas solidas percam em derivativos mais do que a sua propria facturacao..e fiquem com futuro muito comprometido.