Petrobras already has a plan to finance suppliers
Valor Econômico
Petrobras is already working on a financial model to assist its suppliers in the pre-salt undertaking. According to its financial officer and officer of relations with investors, Almir Barbassa, the company will assume the initiative of making it easier for these companies to have access to resources. Without ruling out the access of these companies to bank credit, Petrobras wants to intensify the creation of Investment Funds in Credit Rights (FIDC, in Portuguese) and Participation Investment Funds (FIP, in Portuguese), so that investors may invest both in debts and in stocks of these companies.
The model of credit already enters in a new stage this month. Barbassa informed to Valor that, still in September, a new Petrobras supplier FICD model will be launched with capital of up to R$ 1 billion (US$ 540.5 million) and, for the first time, with an extreme diversification, in order to reduce the risk for the investors. The FIDC is based on the contracts entered into between Petrobras and the companies, in which the State company promises to make future payment in exchange for the goods. The value of the contracts involved in this new fund should not exceed R$ 4 million (US$ 2.16 million), which means that, at the smaller value forecast, R$ 100 million (US$ 54.1 million), there will be at least 25 suppliers integrating the receivables that will form the fund. Petrobras has never had, so far, so many companies integrating a FIDC. In order to offer more guarantees to these investors that will acquire shares of the FIDC, Petrobras will also have senior-shares of this new fund, that is, if there will have nonpayment, the State company may absorb it without causing damage to the investor, owner of the subordinate shares.
Another initiative of the company will be stimulating the creation of new PEFs, private equity funds, in which the companies sell part of their shares in order to capitalize. Caixa Economica - the Brazilian Federal Savings Bank - currently has a PEF intended for the oil and gas sector with R$ 600 million (US$ 324.3 million) in volume and the BNDES has just received proposals from investors to set up another fund aimed at the sector with something between R$ 500 million (US$ 270.3 million) and R$ 1 billion (US$ 540.5 million), with 20% of such amount released by the BNDESPar itself. "But there are other institutions working on this aim (of creating PEFs for oil and gas)", says Barbassa.
For the director of Petrobras, the investments in the sector in private equity, in which the companies gain a partner instead of a creditor, are important because they imply a more professional and clearer management demand from the companies that will provide machines and equipment for the pre-salt exploration. Last week, he and José Sérgio Gabrielli, CEO of Petrobras, were in São Paulo at a meeting with representatives of the Brazilian Machinery Manufacturers Association (Abimaq), aimed, among other things, at dealing with the need of funds on the part of these companies.