The Brazilian Miguel Gutierrez, who for two decades was CEO of Americanas, one of the largest retail distribution groups in Brazil, was arrested this Friday in Madrid, as confirmed by Spanish police sources. The Brazilian Federal Police accuses him of being the mastermind of the monumental fraud discovered in 2023 by his replacement in Americana. The Brazilian justice had ordered the arrest of Gutierrez and 14 other former directors of the company suspected of hiding a hole of 25,000 million reais (4,200 million euros) in the accounts. Gutierrez, who also has Spanish nationality, settled in Madrid once the double accounting with which he apparently deceived the supervisor, the auditors and the board of directors was discovered. Investigators consider it “the largest fraud in the history of the Brazilian financial market.”
Americanas was a retail giant in Brazil. It is so called because it was founded in 1929 by five American merchants who were on their way to Argentina but stayed in Rio de Janeiro. It has stores all over Brazil. The revelation of the fraud, a year and a half ago, was a monumental shock because it is an iconic brand, with more than 45,000 employees. In addition, the company is controlled by a trio of businessmen that includes the richest Brazilian in the country, Jorge Paulo Lemann. He and his two partners, Carlos Sicupira and Marcel Telles, founders of 3G Capital, distanced themselves from the accounting maneuvers of the former CEO from the start and maintain that they too were deceived.
This Thursday, the Brazilian Federal Police launched an operation against 15 members of the former leadership of Americanas that included the arrest and provisional imprisonment of Gutierrez, the former CEO detained in Madrid, and the former director of the digital arm Anna Saicali, a fugitive in Portugal, where he traveled a couple of weeks ago after buying a flight in a hurry, according to the Brazilian press. Both had been included on the Interpol list of escapees with their respective international arrest warrants. Those investigated are also suspected of profiting from the massive sale of shares following the announcement of the CEO’s replacement. Gutierrez’s attorney maintains that his client did not participate in or know of any fraud.
The monumental hole was discovered in January 2023, when the executive appointed to replace Gutierrez resigned nine days after assuming power, when Brazil was in the throes of the Bolsonaro assault on the heart of political power in Brasilia. Although that somewhat limited the impact, the sudden resignation caused enormous surprise and alarm in economic circles. Neither the company nor the manager who had just taken the reins were anyone. The newcomer was the country’s star executive, Sérgio Rial, former head of Banco Santander in Brazil.
Rial blamed his resignation from Americanas on “accounting inconsistencies” worth 20 billion reais (3.8 billion dollars) that he found in the accounts when he took office. The shares plummeted on the São Paulo Stock Exchange, where it was listed on a specific index for companies with good governance. The new executive left the distribution company and the courts accepted the petition to file for bankruptcy. From the beginning, suspicions focused on Gutierrez, the outgoing CEO.
The police investigation is based on the confession of two former members of the leadership who directly participated in the fraud: the then financial director and the director of the internal comptroller. Their testimonies and the documentation provided indicate that the suspects created and managed a parallel accounting of Americanas. They had been covering the books for years with maneuvers, omissions and fictitious operations. The real balance sheets closed the year with losses and they recorded juicy profits that boosted the shares on the stock market.
In a secret file called green and red, they placed the bank analysts’ estimates of Americana’s results and, when they did not meet expectations, they altered the numbers so as not to frustrate market expectations, according to one of the informers who told the police. . The hole grew year after year in a snowball effect. WhatsApp messages exchanged by the accused, and published by the local press, show the agony that it entailed each year for the banks to renew the guarantees to Americanas and for the accounting balances to receive the approval of the auditors.
In August 2022, Americanas announced the signing of Rial, famous for things like swimming with sharks at a Santander event, as a replacement for the discreet Gutierrez. Rial would take over the leadership the following January. Aware that the days of the big lie were numbered, the still CEO and his closest team began to get rid of shares in the company en masse. Ironically, the expectations generated by the change benefited them as investors because the share price rose. According to the police, between them all they pocketed 43 million euros; the main seller was Gutierrez, with 26 million.
Despite his two decades at the helm of one of the most popular companies in Brazil, the Spanish-Brazilian was relatively unknown thanks to his allergy to interviews and photos.
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