Understand what “withdrawal risk” is and how Americanas may not have seen a BRL 20 billion shortfall

Americanas announced the day before a shortfall estimated at R$ 20 billion after detecting “accounting inconsistencies” in its balance sheet, which caused the president to resign after ten days in office and raised doubts in the market about the confidence in operations carried out with creditors. and published balance sheets.

According to a report by Bradesco BBI released this morning, the settlement of these accounting “inconsistencies” could affect the company’s creditor banks. This is due to operations that are not included in the balance sheet of the companies, known in the market as “drawn risk” or “fotfait”.

According to BBI, these are operations that use customer receivables to leverage the company with bank financing, with the company’s guarantee.

THE CNN economist and FGV professor Roberto Kanter, specialist in retail, said that the practice is not uncommon among large companies and explained how it can affect the accounting available on the company’s balance sheet.

“When Americanas buys from suppliers, it usually sets a very long term for payment, often up to 180 days. As she buys in large volumes, suppliers agree to sell the product and receive it within this period. But, within a week after the sale is made, the financial intermediary contacts the seller and offers to advance the amount,” he said.

“Since suppliers may have tighter deadlines, they accept it. And then the debt becomes with the financial intermediary. What happened was that instead of recording Americanas on its balance sheet as ‘debts to the bank’, it kept recording it as ‘debt to the supplier’, and this impacts on a different balance sheet management, mainly on interest rates”, he added.

A letter from January last year by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) already warned of this practice, telling consultants to alert the companies they audit about the risks of this operation. The CVM also explained that it found it convenient to alert the market about the operations that were being structured.

THE CNN got in touch with PwC, the company responsible for auditing Americanas, which said it “does not comment on customer information in any scenario or nature”.

In a closed conference this Thursday morning (12), the former chief executive of Americanas, Sergio Rial, said that he found some signs related to failures in identifying bank financing that should have been identified as debt.

“One of the first things that caught my attention is why in the circularization letters to the banks this does not appear as a debt”, said Rial, referring to Americanas financing contracts aimed at paying suppliers.

Americanas published a new material fact this Thursday (12), which according to the company serves as a continuation of the disclosure of accounting inconsistencies from the previous day.

In the statement, the company reported that Rial provided clarification on the accounting inconsistencies found during a conference call organized by Banco BTG, at 9:00 am. Americanas also pointed out that it is not possible to measure the total impacts, but declared that it will inform the market in case of new discoveries.

“It is reiterated that, at this time, it is not possible to determine all the impacts of such inconsistencies on the income statement and balance sheet of the
company. Only with the completion of verification work and the work to be carried out by the independent auditors, after which it will be possible to properly determine all the impacts that such inconsistencies will have on the company’s financial statements”, he declared.

“The company will keep its shareholders and the market in general updated on any developments or news regarding the determination of accounting inconsistencies”, he concluded.

Source: CNN Brasil

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