Investment of companies breaks record
O Estado de S. Paulo
Driven by the infrastructure sector, the investment of the Brazilian companies has not only overcome the pace of the period prior to the crisis but it broke a ten-year record, when the first quarter of the year is taken into account. A survey of the financial data company Serasa Experian shows that in the first quarter of 2010, the investments represented 8.3% of the net earnings of a group of 500 companies whose financial statements were analyzed. In the first three months of 2008, the number was lower, 7.7%.
The increase of the investment reflects the good performance of the economy, with growth of 9% in the first quarter compared to the same period of 2009, and the confidence of the entrepreneurs in the growth of consumption. "What caught our attention was that the indicator of 8.3% is almost the same of last year as a whole (8.6%), and during a period in which the investment is historically not strong", says the Manager of Credit Analysis of Serasa Experian, Marcio Torres. "We have never had such a strong first quarter". In view of the vigor of the numbers of the quarter, Torres already estimates the investment indicator of 2010 should break the record of 2008, in the historical series of the study, started in 2000. Despite the worsening of the global financial crisis in the last quarter, the indicator reached 10.2% in 2008. The executive considers, however, that the cycle of increase of the interest rate started by the Central Bank may reduce the growth rates a little in the coming months.
In the first quarter of the year, the sector that stayed in the spotlight was the services sector, which includes infrastructure, and whose investment indicator reached 12.6% of the net sales. In the same period in 2008, the indicator was 10.8% and it went up to 11.7% last year. "We are talking about investments to solve the major bottlenecks in the country, which are in the infrastructure, such as sanitation, transports and highway concessions", says the Manager of Serasa. The companies of the retail presented recovery in the levels of investment, from 1.9% in 2009 to 2.5% of the sales now. Only the industry featured a slight fall, from 6.3% to 6.2%. The sector was the most affected by the financial crisis that stepped on the brake of the world demand and knocked down the exports. In the first quarter of 2008, the investment indicator of the industry was at 7.6%.