Market roundup: Brazil’s first state-owned company to be privatized

Brazil’s first state-owned company to be privatized through a share offering

Paraná-based electric utility Copel was privatized this week, raising BRL 5.2 billion (USD 1.06 billion) on the Brazilian stock exchange. It was Brazil’s second-largest share offering of the year, behind only the BRL 5.4 billion follow-on offering of BRF, the world’s biggest poultry exporter.

Why it matters. The state government owned 31 percent of the company. After the primary and secondary offers, its stake was reduced to 15.6 percent. With that, the company became a corporation, and there is a tendency is for more Brazilian state-owned companies to use the stock market as a path to privatization.

By the numbers. Copel is responsible for energy distribution in the state of Paraná. The company manages more than 200,000 kilometers of distribution networks and serves almost the entire state. It serves more than 4.9 million consumer units in 395 municipalities.

Similar, but not the same. Copel’s follow-on was similar to that of Eletrobras in many ways. Latin America’s largest energy company was privatized more than a year ago through a BRL 30 billion offering that included a capital injection led by Eletrobras itself and newly issued shares. As the federal government did not participate in the offering, its stake was...