Un informativo trabajo de Erica Gorga sobre la evolución de la estructura de propiedad de las empresas brasileñas cotizadas. Aquí ya nos hemos ocupado de esta cuestión, que es fascinante: ¿es bueno para la Sociedad que existan compañías de capital disperso, esto es, sin accionistas de control? ¿por qué hay mercados de capitales en los que la estructura de propiedad dominante es la dispersión del capital entre millones de accionistas (EE.UU, Gran Bretaña) mientras en otros (Europa Continental, Asia) predominan las sociedades cotizadas de capital concentrado o controladas por un socio mayoritario o a través de una participación minoritaria y una pirámide o la emisión de acciones sin voto?. Lo resumimos a continuación, con algunos comentarios. Con carácter general, la propiedad dispersa se amplía cuando las empresas tienen necesidades de financiación que bancos o cash-flow no pueden satisfacer a bajo coste, es decir, la venta al público de las acciones es una forma de financiación mucho más barata. Si los que han invertido en estas emisiones no son expropiados por los que les han pedido el dinero, la propiedad dispersa puede consolidarse si los insiders pueden estar seguros de que no se les va a privar del control.
Bovespa, the main stock exchange in Brazil, launched three special listing segments in December of 2000: Level I, Level 2 and Novo Mercado. These segments were intended to enhance companies' securities prices and attract investors to the market by fostering transparency and confidence in the stock market.To list in these segments, companies must comply with stricter disclosure requirements and corporate govemance practices than those required by Brazilian legislation
Because the standard trading market continues to exist, firms voluntarily choose to migrate to the special segments. Novo Mercado is the only segment that requires the one-share-one-vote rule which best enables ownership to become dispersed
especialmente en un mercado de capitales como el brasileño en el que las acciones en manos del público parecen ser, en gran medida, acciones sin voto
Recent studies show that Novo Mercado's firms receive higher prices for their securities.These prices should encourage firms to upgrade their listing level, since firms can more easily obtain financing by enacting stricter corporate govemance practices”
lo que llevaría a pensar que las empresas que se pasen al Novo Mercado serán las que necesiten financiación externa para sus inversiones, es decir, las que salen a Bolsa por primera vez y las que, ya estando en Bolsa, no tienen un cash-flow regular y suficiente para financiar nuevos proyectos. Es lógico, pues, que las empresas del Novo Mercado sean, en su inmensa mayoría, nuevos entrantes al mercado de capitales…
In contrast, the majority of companies that have listed in Novo Mercado are "new entrants." Nearly eighty-five percent of Novo Mercado's firms are closely held corporations tliat have gone public and issued shares directly in this listing segment. This suggests that we can identify two corporate worlds in Brazilian capital markets. One world consists of new corporations that adopt better corporate govemance patterns; the other consists of traditional corporations that have not changed their main patterns of corporate govemance or ownership… Level 1 (firms show)… reluctance to migrate to the highest levels of corporate govemance... these firms tend to be large,established, and successful corporations. They can rely on intemal or governmental financing or on financing from other institutions
los acuerdos entre accionistas
the sixty-five Novo Mercado companies without a controlling shareholder drop to forty-five firms when considering the effects of shareholders' agreements over control. Twenty companies (30.76%) with diffuse ownership become companies with a clear controlling group (owning more than fifty percent of the voting rights) when shareholders' agreements are taken into account.
Y en los niveles I y II apenas quedan empresas no controladas una vez que se tienen en cuenta los pactos de acionistas)
The Brazilian Corporate Law provides that shareholders' agreements can regulate the purchase and sale of shares, preference to acquire shares, the exercise of voting rights, or the exercise of control. … While shareholders' agreements are kept private in many jurisdictions, in Brazil these agreements must be duly entered in the corporation's registration books to be enforceable against third parties." They bind the corporation provided that they are filed with the corporation's head office. Therefore, shareholders have strong incentives to disclose these agreements. If shareholders do not register the agreements with the company, agreements will be enforceable only between the signing parties
O sea que si, por ejemplo, uno de los firmantes del pacto, vende sus acciones incumpliendo la preferencia en la adquisición de los otros firmantes, la venta al tercero podría ser anulada pero igualmente, si uno de los miembros vota en la Junta incumpliendo lo decidido previamente en el seno del acuerdo de accionistas
(50%), of the companies have valid shareholders' agreements. The distribution of companies that have these agreements among the listing segments are as follows: twenty-eight (66.67%) Novo Mercado companies 28.57% (de ellos) regulate the sale and purchase of shares, the preference to acquire shares, voting rights and exercise of control. Entendiendo por ejercicio del control when they regulate control exercised by shareholders that jointly own more than fifty percent ofthe corporation's voting rights
Ejemplo:
One example is Abyara S.A.'s shareholders' agreement, which binds 52.9% of the voting shares. The text of the agreement regulates the behavior of stockholders, the exercise of voting rights, and the transfer of the shares bound in the agreement…. its expressed objective is "to provide general orientation for the business management of the company.
Es interesante que la sindicación de votos también afecta al Consejo de Administración
Of the forty-two companies that have shareholders' agreements, twenty-six (61.90%) have shareholders' agreements that bind directors' votes. Of these twenty-six companies, sixteen (61.53%) specify instances in which directors' votes are bound and ten do not.
Las cláusulas anti-OPA: LA POISON PILL BRASILEÑA ¿ES EXPORTABLE A ESPAÑA?
In Brazil, the predominant takeover defense is a provision in the company's charter that allows current shareholders to sell their shares to an acquirer who attains a critical limit of target's shares. In this sense it resembles the mandatory tender offer required by law but is triggered by a lower threshold of shares' acquisition. While the media calls this defense a poison pill, this type of takeover defense might not completely stop a determined acquirer. Instead, it ensures minority shareholders the right to tender their shares at a fair price if they think this is a good time to sell. This strategy also makes the target acquisition much more expensive to the bidder….A "Type A" anti-takeover defense provides that once a determined threshold of ownership is met, the acquiring shareholder must make a tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares. This threshold of acquisition generally ranges from ten to thirtyfive percent of the shares… A lo que se añade una “penalty clause. "Type 1" provides that if the acquirer does not comply with the tender offer clause, the board of directors will call an extraordinary shareholder meeting during which the board may decide to suspend the rights appartenant to shares that were acquired in disregard of the tender offer clause. The shareholder that has acquired the control will not be able to cast votes in this meeting… Penalty clause "Type 2" provides that any future change in the bylaws that restricts shareholders' rights to tender their shares according to the tender offer clause will obligate shareholders who approved the change to make a tender offer to acquire the shares of the other shareholders. Basically, this prevents anti-takeover clauses from being excluded from bylaws, even if the majority of shareholders want, to deliberate their exclusion in a shareholder meeting.
el intento de toma de control de Perdigao por Sadia
Sadia S.A. and Perdigao S.A. are the largest players in the Brazilian food manufacturing business. … Sadia is listed on Bovespa's Level 1. Perdigao is listed on Novo Mercado. In June 2006, Sadia … offered to pay $27.88 per share.Sadia's price was the average market price of Perdigâo's shares at Bovespa in the thirty preceding days plus a premium of 35%. Perdigâo's executives found Sadia's price too far below Perdigâo's value ….The largest shareholders of Perdigao are eight pension funds: …. Most of these funds engaged in a shareholders' agreement regulating voting rights in the company. They jointly own about 49% of Perdigâo's voting shares. The pension funds designed a strategy to prevent the transaction by convincing Weg SA, a shareholder owning approximately 5.88% of Perdigâo's shares, not to tender its shares. …Sadia then offered a new price of $29 per share. …, the funds refused to tender their shares and easily and quickly blocked the hostile takeover attempt. Many Brazilian companies currently have ownership structures similar to Perdigâo's. … .However, Perdigâo's ownership structure is sufficiently dispersed to make it a target for a hostile acquirer
Tiene mucho interés por dos razones. La primera es que es un acuerdo entre accionistas institucionales, es decir, son fondos de pensiones los que se coordinan para oponerse a una OPA hostil cuyo precio consideran por debajo del valor de la compañía. De manera que su pacto de accionistas no es un pacto, parece, para gobernar la compañía con lo que no podría decirse que, al firmarlo, deban considerarse como partes acting in concert a los efectos, por ejemplo, de nuestra legislación sobre OPAS (adquisición del control a través de un contrato y obligación de formular una OPA). No parece que la legislación brasileña les impidiera actuar concertadamente ni les obligara a formular una OPA por hacerlo. La segunda razón es que una sociedad en la que haya muchos accionistas significativos pueden tener dificultades – costes elevados por su número o por su cáracter de inversores institucionales – para coordinarse para gobernar la compañía y, por tanto, no hacerlo pero pueden tener suficientes incentivos para superar los problemas de acción colectiva de los accionistas en el caso de OPAS hostiles u otras tomas de control que resulten dañinas para los accionistas (para ellos y para los accionistas dispersos) con lo que su presencia y cierto grado de acuerdo entre ellos puede tener efectos protectores para los accionistas dispersos. Y los inversores institucionales tienen incentivos para incurrir en esta suerte de vigilancia porque el valor de sus inversiones aumenta ya que la decisión de aceptar una OPA no está en los insiders sino en los inversores institucionales que actúan coordinadamente de manera que la prima de control está en sus manos. A la vez, proporciona a los insiders – los administradores y la familia o los accionistas que sacaron a bolsa la compañía – una cierta protección frente a intentos de toma de control sin elevar los beneficios privados que estos insiders pueden extraer. Digamos que eso puede ser una situación que estabilice la dispersión de la propiedad. Algo así pudo ocurrir en Gran Bretaña en la versión de Cheffins. Por tanto, la historia que cuenta Gorga encaja con la explicación posterior de Coffee y con la de Gilson al que cita profusamente Gorga.
