Market roundup: Americanas under the microscope

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What to expect from the Americanas investigations

Brazil’s Securities Commission (CVM) has stepped up its efforts to investigate Americanas — the major Brazilian retailer whose recent demise has stunned investors and sent shockwaves through the market. In less than a week, the number of ongoing investigations rose from three to seven.

Rewind. Americanas is one of Brazil’s largest retail groups. Its performance has been lackluster of late — it posted the worst Q3 results of any of the industry’s top dogs. Yet no one saw coming what could well be the biggest accounting scandal in Brazilian history.

On January 11, Americanas disclosed “accounting inconsistencies” of roughly BRL 20 billion (USD 3.84 billion) to the market.
The revelation sparked a very public and fierce battle with its main creditors. With banks unwilling to renegotiate the company’s dues, Americanas said it could face “the early and immediate maturity of debts” worth BRL 43 billion.
On January 19, the company filed for bankruptcy protection.

State of play. The CVM wants to determine whether the “inconsistencies” stemmed from neglect of governance...

Fabiane Ziolla Menezes and Ana Ferraz

Former editor-in-chief of LABS (Latin America Business Stories), Fabiane has more than 15 years of experience reporting on business, finance, innovation, and cities in Brazil. The latter recently took her back to the classroom and made her a Master in Urban Management from PUCPR. At TBR, she keeps an eye on economic policy, game-changing businesses, and people driving innovation in Latin America.