Embpar Participacoes S.A.

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What it is

Embpar was founded in 1949 in Lages, Santa Catarina, by Emílio Fiorentino Battistella as a timber mill, and grew into a diversified family holding across timber and heavy vehicles. The company was formerly known as Battistella Administração e Participações S/A and changed its name to Embpar Participacoes S.A. in April 2008.

It historically operated through three subsidiaries: Battistella Indústria e Comércio Ltda., which traded timber and wood products (now winding down), and Jaspe Imóveis S.A., which manages real estate. The Cotrasa subsidiary resells Scania-brand heavy vehicles and accessories and provides technical assistance in the state of Paraná.

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Who owns it

Embpar operates as a subsidiary of Aliança Battistella Agro Pastoril e Administradora de Bens S.A., the Battistella family’s unlisted holding vehicle. Insiders — effectively the family — control 69.5% of the shares, leaving a free float of roughly 30.5% (our calculation from EODHD pctInsiders data).

No institutional investors are recorded in the ownership data; the free float is held by retail and small investors on B3. Luciano Ribas Battistella is the contact name listed for the controlling entity, consistent with family continuity across generations.

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Who runs it

Named executive directors are not disclosed in the company’s publicly available filings or investor-relations pages at the time of writing. Historical shareholder meeting records name Maurício Valente Battistella as presiding officer, suggesting a member of the founding family holds or has held the board chair; current management cannot be independently confirmed from available sources.

Cristiano Locatelli is named as director of the Cotrasa dealership operation, the subsidiary that until recently generated the majority of group revenue.

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The money, in plain words

The headline numbers tell a story of near-total dismantling. Revenue fell from R$457m (US$89 mn) (~$88.7m) in 2023 to R$24m (US$5 mn) (~$4.7m) in 2024, and to just R$2.4m (US$466 k) (~$471,700) in the trailing twelve months — a 99.5% collapse over two years (our calculation).

The company swung from a net profit of R$15.6m (US$3 mn) (~$3.0m) in 2023 to net losses in both 2024 and 2025.

What remains of profitability is the thin TTM net margin of 18.7% — meaning it keeps about 19 cents of every real it earns — but that is on a revenue base so small the absolute profit is under R$500,000 (US$97 k)(~$97,000). The return on equity of 0.94% means owners earned less than one real per year for every hundred reais they own in the company; the equity itself — what shareholders would be left with if assets were sold and debts paid — stands at R$39.4m (US$8 mn) (~$7.7m), well above the market value of R$25.1m (US$5 mn) (~$4.9m), which implies the stock trades at roughly 0.64× book value (our calculation).

The balance sheet carries essentially no debt and almost no cash — just R$12,000 (US$2 k)(~$2,330) — leaving little room for investment but also no immediate solvency risk. The price-to-earnings ratio of 56.3× reflects the market pricing in some recovery; it is a high multiple to pay for a company whose profits are marginal.

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What it is doing now

Through Battistella Indústria e Comércio, the company has discontinued its sawn-wood manufacturing and is now focused on selling off remaining timber inventory. Meanwhile, the Cotrasa dealership arm is the one business still actively investing: Cotrasa reinaugurated its Guarapuava unit in 2024 with capacity expanded by more than 50%, and opened its first dedicated parts store in Paula Freitas, Paraná.

In June 2025, Brazil’s securities regulator flagged atypical trading in EPAR3 securities — a formal disclosure that unusual share-price or volume movements warranted scrutiny, though no further enforcement action has been publicly confirmed.

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What to watch

• Asset realisation: How fast the company converts remaining timber stock into cash, and at what price, will determine whether the book-value cushion is real or illusory.
• Cotrasa’s future: The dealership is still growing its footprint in Paraná. Whether Embpar retains or eventually sells this asset is the single most important strategic question.
• Atypical-trading inquiry: The June 2025 B3 disclosure bears watching; any regulatory finding could affect the controlling family’s ability to transact in the stock.
• Dividend sustainability: A large dividend was paid from 2023 profits (R$0.87 (US$0.17)per share in May 2025), but with the company now loss-making at scale, future distributions depend entirely on asset sales rather than operating earnings.

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This is news, not investment advice.