President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said this Tuesday (7th) that the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) is possibly going to file a lawsuit against clauses in the Eletrobras capitalization process, which he calls “leonine”.
Lula cited the blockade for the company’s renationalization, which requires payment of triple the highest share price reached in two years to make an offer for common shares.
“If tomorrow the government is interested in buying the shares, the shares for the government are worth three times more than the normal value for another candidate. A quasi banditry was carried out so that the government would not acquire a majority in Eletrobras”, said the president in a meeting with journalists from left-wing vehicles. “This is an irrational, Machiavellian thing that we cannot accept.”
Lula also said that he is not going to buy shares in the company at this time. “Especially because the little money we have, we will have to take care of the benefits that the people need us to do”.
“If we manage to make the economy grow and things go well, and we can buy more shares, we will buy”, added the president.
“What I can say is that it was an erratic process. It was a leonine process against the interests of the Brazilian people. It was privatization against the country. Starting with directors’ salaries, board members’ salaries and starting with the fact that the government only has 10% of the stake when it owns 40% of the shares,” declared Lula, who demanded a stake in the company’s management.
For Lula, Brazil needs to “read” about the privatization of Eletrobras. “The directors increased their salaries from R$60,000 to R$360,000. Do you know how much an Eletrobras advisor earns? BRL 200,000 a month to go to one meeting a month”, he said.
Capitalization
The capitalization process of Eletrobras went through several legal imbroglios during the little more than two years of processing. The first delay in the process takes place in 2021, and was generated by the delay in the analysis of documents by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU). However, months later, the agency approved the capitalization model.
When the process was almost concluded, the Court of Justice of Rio de Janeiro (TJ-RJ) suspended the holding of the General Meeting of Debenture Holders in Furnas, essential to allow the capitalization of Eletrobras, after a request for a limit put together by the Brazilian Association of Investors (Abradin). The entity claimed that investors, who already invested in the company, would be “severely harmed”.
The then government of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL), however, overturned the injunction that delayed the capitalization of the company, after the president of the TJ-RJ, judge Henrique Carlos de Andrade Figueiredo, granted a favorable opinion on the progress of the capitalization.
to Eletrobras
Eletrobras has close to 51 gigawatts (GW) in installed generation capacity — equivalent to 29% of Brazil’s generating complex — and more than 70,000 km of transmission lines, or 43.1% of the national grid.
One of the purposes of capitalization is to make the company able to increase your investment level and become more competitive in the market.
*With information from Agência Estado and Lucas Janone, from CNN.
Source: CNN Brasil
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