Тема: Приватизация

Let the Party Begin

Brazil's privatisation programme is as complex as it is gigantic. But it promises huge rewards to foreign investors — and a chance to change the way everybody does business in Latin America's biggest country.

Over the past decade privatisation has been at the heart of the market reforms that have swept over Latin America. Brazil's government alone has quietly sold 55 companies, for a total of $ 15 billion. But most of these sales of businesses, such as steelworks and petrochemical plants, attracted little attention.

Now this privatisation programme is to be extended, and the scale (масштабы) of the proposed sales is breathtaking. On April 29th a controlling stake in Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD), the world's largest miner of iron ore, is due to go to auction. That will mark the start of two years of further sales. They are expected to raise (bring) $50 billion, much of it from foreign buyers.

Another firm coming up for sale is Eletropaulo, the electricity distributor in Sao Paulo city, which is to be split up into smaller units for privatisation. This one company sells 15% of all Latin America's electricity. Yet another, Eletrobras, the federal holding company for electricity generation, is among the world's top five power companies by market capitalisation. Brazil's government is likely to collect more in its current auction of cellphone licences than Mexico or Argentina received in exchange for controlling stakes in their main telephone companies.

The government of President Lula da Silva has a strong interest in seeing these privatisations through. On top of (besides) a desire to attract foreign capital and technology to modernise the country's infrastructure, it badly needs dollars to finance a growing trade deficit. Foreign investors look willing to oblige (do it), especially now that the country's economic reforms have put an end to three decades of chronic inflation and the government has liberalised trade. A few local pioneers have reaped swift rewards (ср. «сорвать куш»): Bozano Simonsen, a financial-services firm in Rio, pocketed a $400 m profit last year, when it sold minority stakes in two privatised steel makers it had bought for a total of $150 m.

New openness to foreign investment will invite (вызовут) consequences that go far beyond the companies sold and the investors buying them. Privatisation will also affect local companies. In some cases, such as telecoms, the government is forbidding foreigners to buy more than a minority stake. That is forcing would-be buyers to find local partners. The resulting international joint ventures will change Brazil's previously introverted business world.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-21