"The first IPO should be the lottery and it is already well advanced. At least two should happen this year and until June 2020 the expectation is to have four. In addition to B3, our expectation is to open the capital of these Caixa subsidiaries also on the New York Stock Exchange," he said, noting that opening up capital in the US raises the level of corporate governance.
Guimarães said that the sale of shares of the bank's subsidiaries, which include the lottery, insurance, card and asset management segments do not depend on Congressional authorization. According to him, these operations are part of his term as president of Caixa.
The executive said he wants to attract individuals to the IPOs of these companies. The idea is to sell between 10% and 20% of the capital of the subsidiaries and then make new sales operations. "These operations also have a social factor that is to increase the country's investor base," Guimarães said.
The bank president also said that the shares of companies that are under the management of Caixa Econômica Federal in investment funds, including Petrobras' shares, will be sold. Caixa has about R$ 6 billion (US$ 1.6bn) in Petrobras' common shares and R$ 2 billion (US$ 535m) in Petrobras' preferred ones. But the sale of these papers will be done in coordination with the BNDES, which also has state-owned shares.
"Why will I take stock risk if some of the stocks we have already valued a lot? Many of these funds have social demands. The minister has already given okay for this sale, but the timing of the operation has to be coordinated with the BNDES," he said.
War of the payment machines
The president of Caixa also said that the bank will enter the war of payment machines. He affirmed that CEF is the only bank, among the big ones, that does not act in this segment. "We are the only bank that does not have an acquirer. This will change in two months," Guimarães said.
He also noted that Caixa has 96 million debit cards and 5 million credit cards, and intends to launch a paycheck card with low interest rates. His goal is to reach 30 million of this cards. In addition, he intends to launch a paycheck-deductible credit card with lower interest rates, with the goal of reaching 30 million units, but he did not specified the term.
Source: O Globo
