Ambipar was able to prevent the Opportunity director from selling shares in the company through a Rio de Janeiro court through FIP Everest (which owns a 9.41% stake in the company) and its fiduciaries (Banco Genial and Plural).
The Environmental Management Company, which is undergoing a judicial recovery process, had already reached a similar decision in relation to Bradesco.
Since last month, the company has informed the market that sales of Ambipar shares by the bank and the management company have led to a decrease in the stake of the company’s controller, Tércio Borlenghi Júnior. On October 22, for example, the company said its equity stake and voting capital had been reduced from 67.68% to 59.54%.
According to the company, this process led to a sharp decline in the market value, which harmed the company’s restructuring process.
Opportunity claimed in court that the manager did not hold Ambipar’s debts and that it operated on the stock exchange like any other investor, with the right to trade shares whenever it wanted.
The director said in the suit that she considered that when Ambibar bought three companies and increased its influence (using more money than was available to the company) to the level where she should have been consulted as a partner, a clause allowed the class of shares of the company offered for sale to be changed in the market. Therefore, it was supported by extinguishing securities.
In its first decision, the Court ruled that only Bradesco must immediately refrain from any act of sale, liquidation, transfer, consumption, compensation or transfer of shares issued by Ambibar (a method of protecting the company’s business, such as a debt enforcement ban).
In this process, taking place in the Private Law Chamber No. 21 in Rio de Janeiro, Bradesco stated that the judicial recovery was distorted to protect Tercio’s private business. The bank says in the lawsuit: “The contribution that an individual shareholder has in a company does not constitute an asset or asset of the company itself, but is an asset of the shareholder himself.” The argument was not accepted.
As for the opportunity, the ruling did not reach her because she was not a creditor. Ambibar then appealed the ruling, and this time judge Mauro Pereira Martins decided that the decision should extend to the manager.
According to the judge, refraining from adopting “practices that may lead to ruin” for a company undergoing restructuring must include not only creditors, but also shareholders.
“The exercise of the right to corporate participation cannot be obtained at the expense of violations committed by partners, at the expense of the company itself, as in the case under analysis,” the judge says in the ruling.
When contacted, Chance did not comment.
Ambipar informed on Tuesday that it has postponed the release of its third-quarter balance sheet scheduled for Wednesday (12). The company notes that the judicial recovery process has hindered the work of reviewing the document, and it hopes that the process will be completed as quickly as possible.
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