It will be up to the Authority to decide whether or not to file a request to initiate an investigation against the company.
- In the second half of 2022, the company’s directors sold more than R$210 million of the company’s shares.
- They would benefit from “insider trading” (use of privileged information)
- This practice is considered a crime, and provides for a fine of up to three times the total profit from the transactions
- The fact happened before a R$20 billion hole was reported in the company’s balance sheet.
- The revelation was made on the same day that CEO Sergio Real left the company’s helm
He will independently advise the board of shareholders made up of billionaires Jorge Paulo Lehmann, Beto Secubira and Marcel Telles. Real took office on January 2. Manager André Kofer also resigned. Both would be temporarily replaced by João Guerra;
An independent committee will be set up to investigate accounting discrepancies.
It is not yet possible to quantify all the effects of such discrepancies on the income statement and balance sheet. Among the discrepancies, the accounting field identified the existence of purchase financing operations with amounts of the same order as above, in which the company is indebted to financial institutions and which is not sufficiently reflected in the suppliers’ account.
Lojas Americanas, in a statement to investors
Today, Procon, the consumer protection agency, notified the entire group — which includes physical stores and websites like Americanas.com and Submarino — to see if the R$20 billion shortfall identified on the company’s balance sheet affects consumers. The company must report if:
- whether consumer purchases will be affected to any degree;
- breakdown of the number of people who will be affected;
- Clarify whether the complaints of the past 90 days on the Procon-SP platform are related to a deficit of R$20 billion;
- If so, Procon-SP wants to know the company’s action plan to solve the problem.
Americana must respond to questions by the 17th of this month.