Standard & Poor's coloca rating do Brasil ao nível de “lixo”
10/09/2015 - 10:15
Agência admite novos cortes, o que agravará o carácter especulativo da dívida brasileira.
A Standard & Poor's (S&P) reduziu o rating da dívida soberana do Brasil para nível especulativo, de maior risco, vulgarmente designado de “lixo”.
Attack of the rating agencies
Brazil junked
The mystery is why it didn't happen sooner
Sep 10th 2015 |
S&P reduz nota de 31 empresas brasileiras; Petrobras perde selo de bom pagador
Folha Press
A primeira manchete é do jornal “Público” de Lisboa. A segunda é do The Economist, cujo texto, após dizer que “o mistério é porque isto não aconteceu mais cedo”, faz uma análise global do verdadeiro inferno astral da economia brasileira e é reproduzido abaixo. Já a terceira é da Folha e se refere ao rebaixamento da nota pela S & P de “BBB-“ para “BB” (mais negativo que o brasileiro) com perspectiva negativa para o caso da Petrobrás.
As seguintes 31 empresas brasleiras perderam o selo de bom pagador atribuído pela agência: _Companhia de Gás de São Paulo - Comgás; Companhia Energética do Ceará - Coelce; Elektro Eletricidade e Serviços S.A. (Elektro); Eletrobras-Centrais Elétricas Brasileiras S.A.; Transmissora Aliança de Energia Elétrica S.A. (TAESA); Neoenergia S.A.; Companhia de Eletricidade do Estado da Bahia - COELBA; Companhia Energética do Rio Grande do Norte - COSERN; Companhia Energética de Pernambuco - CELPE; Itaipu Binacional; Atlantia Bertin Concessões S.A. (AB Concessões); Rodovia das Colinas S.A.; Triângulo do Sol Auto-Estradas S.A.; Arteris S.A.; Autopista Planalto Sul S/A.; CCR S.A.; Autoban - Concessionária do Sistema Anhanguera Bandeirantes S.A.; Concessionária da Rodovia Presidente Dutra S.A.; Rodonorte Concessionária de Rodovias Integradas S.A.; Ecorodovias Concessões e Servicos S.A.; Concessionária Ecovias dos Imigrantes S.A.; Santos Brasil Participações S.A.; Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras); Samarco Mineração S.A. _
[caption id="attachment_2285" align="alignright" width="300"]
Presidente Dilma Rousseff preocupada com rebaixamento do Brasil pela agência S & P (Imagem - "Público-Reuters", Lisboa, 9/9/2015)[/caption]
THE ECONOMIST
“WHEN Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's president, presented a budget with a gaping primary deficit (before interest payments) of 0.5% of GDP last week, many (including this newspaper) despaired. It was only a matter of time, the worriers warned, before such fiscal incontinence would cost Brazil its cherished investment-grade credit rating. Few expected the raters to react quite so quickly. On September 9th Standard & Poor's, which in 2008 had led the way in upgrading Brazil to respectability, became the first agency to downgrade the country's foreign-currency government debt back to junk. S&P has kept Brazil on negative watch, saying it has a one-in-three chance of sinking deeper into speculative territory.
To some extent, S&P's decision had been priced in already. For months the cost of insuring Brazilian government bonds against default has been higher than for Turkish ones, which are rated as junk. Following last week's budget announcement the real slid by 6% against the dollar.
As our article went to press markets were nevertheless bracing for a jumpy Thursday (S&P moved after they closed the night before). In after-hours trading in New York, a basket of Brazilian equities lost 4%; Petrobras, the state-controlled oil giant, saw its American-listed shares drop by 5%. Another hint that not everything was priced in, notes Alberto Ramos of Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, were the 200 anxious e-mails which flooded his inbox in the hour following S&P's announcement.
Some capital flight is inevitable. Pension and mutual funds which can only hold investment-grade assets will now offload Brazilian government bonds at a brisker pace, in anticipation of similar downgrades by Moody's and Fitch (typically, two of the big three rating agencies need to declare junk status to force divestment). This will not cripple Brazil of today, with its diversified economy and plump foreign-exchange reserves, as it might have in more chaotic days. But the government's already-high borrowing costs will rise further, raising the risk of another downgrade. Capital will also become pricier for companies. None of this will help Brazil shake off the recession it slid into in the second quarter.
How politicians will react is less clear. The downgrade is certainly a slap in the face for the finance minister, Joaquim Levy, a hawkish former investment banker brought in last year mainly to prevent it. To be fair, many of his proposed fiscal measures, including modest cuts to welfare spending, were watered down by an unruly Congress over which Ms Rousseff—with her popularity in single digits and a huge corruption scandal plaguing her coalition—has no control. Only Congress can unlock the roughly 90% of the budget that is currently ring-fenced, that it might be sheared. S&P may yet motivate them to do so. Then again, now that the cosh has fallen, congressmen (and ministers inimical to Mr Levy's belt-tightening) may conclude that further austerity is pointless. It wouldn't be the first time.”