The battle that Lojas Americanas is maintaining to avoid bankruptcy has caused Sérgio Rial to present his resignation from the presidency of the Board of Directors of Banco Santander Brasil. This resignation ends a week marked by the decision of Lojas Americanas, a retail giant, to file for bankruptcy.
In a statement sent to the market after the stock market close, Santander Brasil, controlled by the Spanish banking group, informed that Rial submitted her resignation to the Board and its Advisory Committees and her vacancy will be filled by Deborah Stern Vieitas.
The executive, who occupies the vice-presidency of the Board of Directors, will exercise the functions of the presidency until the next Ordinary General Assembly of the entity, scheduled for April 28, but “remaining her position unchanged.”
Rial’s departure from Santander Brazil occurred after Lojas Americanas announced on January 11 that it had identified accounting inconsistencies for close to 20,000 million reais (about 3,850 million dollars), which led to the resignation of the board of directors of the company. Rial, who commanded Santander Brazil until 2021, left the presidency of Lojas Americanas after only nine days in office.
On Thursday, the company filed the petition for judicial recovery before the Rio de Janeiro Court, which immediately assigned it, and declared that it had debts worth approximately 43,000 million reais (about 8,250 million dollars).
Judicial recovery, guaranteed by bankruptcy law, is a mechanism to avoid bankruptcy during and stipulates a term of 180 days, with the possibility of extending it for the same period, to settle debts with creditors, but allows companies to operate on process
Since the discovery of the accounting hole, the market value of Lojas Americanas has plummeted on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, with negative impacts on the price of sectors such as banking, both public and private, as they could be exposed to the delicate situation firm financial. For this reason, the square abandoned the company’s papers as of this Friday.
