Tough at the top in Brazil. According to a report by the Bloomberg news agency, the Brazilian recession is taking its toll on chief executives. At least 40 of the CEOs of 110 Brazil-based companies with assets of US$1bn or more have been replaced over the last two years, the report said. “Periods of crisis tend to drive up the exits of C-levels. This was intensified this year by a series of events in which you have a serious conflict between the interest of the company and the ones of shareholders and boards”, said Adeopato Volpi Netto, head of capital…
Fresh from attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Forum (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru, China’s president Xi Jinping was in Santiago, Chile, on 22 November, where he reasserted China’s comprehensive strategic partnership with Latin America at the headquarters of the United Nations’ Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). To mark the occasion, ECLAC released a new Spanish-language report on economic relations between Latin America & The Caribbean and China. Entitled, ‘Relaciones económicas entre América Latina y el Caribe y China – Oportunidades y Desafíos’, the report is freely available at http://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/40743/1/S1601155_es.pdf Giving a summary of the report, ECLAC’s executive secretary,…
Oi, Brazil’s fourth largest mobile operator, reported a narrower third quarter loss as it struggles to emerge from bankruptcy protection. The government has so far said it will not intervene to bail out the company. Oi said it had a third quarter loss of BRL1.015bn (US$298.7m), a small reduction on the comparable year-earlier period. Its CEO, Marco Schroeder, said that there had been a 10% cut in operating costs, although revenues were also down by over 6% to BRL6.4bn (US$1.88bn). The fall in revenue reflected a purge of the client base, particularly in the pre-paid mobile and fixed line segments.…
Mexico’s soft drinks companies say the extra one peso per litre tax introduced in 2014 to combat obesity and diabetes has failed. But in the light of recent research findings on the prevalence of diabetes in Mexico, the debate is far from over. The soft drinks producers’ association (Asociación Nacional de Productores de Refrescos y Aguas Carbonatadas, ANPRAC) says the extra tax introduced on its products in 2014 has been a failure. At the time, the government led by President Enrique Peña Nieto said it was applying a special one-peso (US$0.05) per litre tax to reduce the consumption of high-calorie…
Odebrecht, the giant construction and civil engineering company, is on the cusp of major changes. Deeply involved in Brazil’s Petrolão corruption scandal, it is currently negotiating what is described as the world’s biggest leniency deal. It is not just the survival of the heavily leveraged group that is at stake: there are also important implications for Brazilian politicians, for the country’s economic recovery, and for Peruvian gas pipelines, among other things. Odebrecht matters. It is Brazil’s largest construction company, with 2015 revenues of BRL132bn (US$42.2bn). At its peak, it employed just over 180,000 people around the world. It is active…