08/01/2008 09h24
São Martinho changes management and must invest US$ 2 billion
Valor Econômico 08/01/2008
The São Paulo group São Martinho decided to fully professionalize its management. João Guilherme Ometto, one of the main shareholders of the plant and the last member of the Ometto family to hold an executive position in the group, leaves the presidency to take over the Board of Directors. Ometto hands the office to Fábio Venturelli, former officer of Dow Química, who will have in his hands the challenge to triple the size of the company up to 2020. The investments to promote this expansion are foreseen at US$ 2 billion. The decision to professionalize the group was taken in 2000, when the sugar and alcohol segment got out of one of its worst financial crises. Eight years later, the group starts harvesting the results of its strategy, which was meticulously outlined by the shareholders. The premiere in the Bovespa New Market, in February, 2007, surprised the competition, but the leaving of São Martinho from Copersucar, which was one of the founding plants of the largest sugar cooperative of the world, surprised even more. Last October Fábio Venturelli arrived at the company, hired as vice-president. But, from the beginning, he already knew he would be the group's CEO. Young, 42, with a successful career at Dow Química in Brazil and in the USA, the executive will carry on the group's expansion process. With three plants in operation, São Martinho, headquartered in Pradópolis (SP), shall build a new unit - whose place is still undefined - and may enter into new partnerships to promote its growth. Today, the Japanese Mitsubishi Corporation holds 10% of the Boa Vista plant, in Goiás. With its investment plans, São Martinho intends to reach a volume of 30 million processed tons of sugar cane in 2020. In this 2008/09 harvest, the estimate is to grind 11.2 million tons. Such grinding and fund volumes may possible grow halfway. In order to expand its businesses, the company intends to enter into partnerships, but it denies negotiations at this moment. It also rules out mergers, as the rumored in the market with newly-formed giant Santelisa Vale, from Sertãozinho (SP). He also denies it is strengthening its partnership with its current Japanese partner Mitsubishi, which was even pointed as a purchaser of the company.
