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The Two Worked Together at Americanas for Over 2 Decades.
Americanas announced this morning that it found “accounting errors” in its balance sheet with potential materiality of R$ 20 billion. CEO Sergio Rial and CFO André Covre resigned after the initial investigation revealed the problem. Both were in office for only 9 days when this happened.
An Americanas board of directors appointed Joo Guerra, a longtime employee who did not work in the CFO area nor reported to the CEO, to the roles of temporary CEO and Director of Investor Relations. The company’s debt to its suppliers, which may have been underestimated in recent years, is the main highlight of the investigation.
In this scenario, the bank pays the supplier on behalf of the company, which then owes money to the bank. The corporation believes that the impact on cash from the discrepancies is insignificant. The preliminary amount of R$ 20 billion will not necessarily be deducted from equity, despite Americanas having a net equity of R$ 14 billion.
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To discover the true value of the problem, a more in-depth analysis is necessary. This amount may include figures that may still be activated. Americanas assured its employees in a memo that it had R$ 8 billion in cash and would continue to pay its suppliers on time. The balance sheets of Americanas in recent years have been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC).
Internally, a board committee is analyzing this, with the help of PWC. Former CEO Miguel Gutierrez, Anna Saicali, head of Ame Digital, Timotheo Barros, head of physical stores and CFO, and Márcio Cruz, head of B2W, worked together at Americanas for more than two decades before the recent leadership change. According to a source close to the company, it has not yet been determined whether the entries in question were in a gray area of accounting regulation or constituted fraud.
Whatever the situation, the discovery of the “inconsistencies” should lead the market to question whether similar accounting methods are being used by other companies. CFOs across all sectors of the economy need to start thinking about the future today. Due to the prevalence of foreign investors like Blackrock, Vanguard, and Wells Fargo in the Free Float of the company, this incident is also a setback for the Brazilian capital markets.
Over the past two years, shares of Americanas have consistently lost value, becoming one of the worst retail stocks. The market value of the corporation at the close of the day was R$ 11 billion. “The corporation is expressing what it knows at this moment,” said a source close to the situation. The three main shareholders of Americanas, all with over 40 years with the company (known as Carlos Alberto Sicupira, Marcel Telles, and Jorge Paulo Lemann), stated that they will continue to support the company and that Rial will advise them on how to fix the problem.
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