Brazilian retailer Americanas: 9 banks committed to a debt of US$3.9 billion

As soon as Brazilian retailer Americanas disclosed accounting inconsistencies in the amount of R$20 billion (US$3.9 billion), the banks were at the center of the discussions.

This is because most of the debt was financed by financial institutions.

So much so that, at this moment, the relationship between shareholders and creditors is already starting to shake, which may further increase uncertainties regarding the future of the retailer.

See below the list of banks with the highest debts with Americanas, according to market projections.

BANK / DRAWN RISK (IN R$ BILLION) / TOTAL (IN R$ BILLION)

• BRADESCO /4 /4.8
• Santander /1.8 /3.7
• Itaú /2.7/ 3.4
• Safra /2,1/2
• BTG /2 /2
• Banco do Brasil /0.3 /1.3
• Daycoval /0.6 /0.6
• BV /0/0.4
• ABC /0.3 /0

BANKS CAN PAY AMERICANAS BILL

Americanas’ creditor banks may be responsible for paying the retailer’s R$20 billion accounting shortfall, as calculated by Bradesco BBI in the worst case scenario.

According to Gustavo Schroden and the team of BBI analysts who signed the report, the risk for the banks would be related to the forfait, or drawn risk, which involves credit negotiations with the banks to pay the retailer’s suppliers.

BBI pointed out that there is still little visibility on how creditors would be impacted in practical terms by the Americanas failure, but the worst scenario would be banks having to write off R$20 billion.

Inter Research made the same calculation as the worst case scenario. Matheus Amaral, an analyst at the brokerage firm, carried out a stress test in which he considered a write-off of the entire bank portfolio [which Inter covers] exposed to the retail sector and a limited total write-off of R$20 billion for each one, in order to hypothetically result in the limit of an equity reduction in each one.

With information from MoneyTimes