According to information obtained by Valor, auditors believe there may have been flaws in assessing the company’s repayment capacity and a possible failure by the Treasury to effectively evaluate Correios’ financial condition before granting the federal guarantee.

The Treasury and Correios did not respond to requests for comment.

The federal guarantee was granted for a R$12 billion loan to Correios, provided by a group of five banks and approved last year after the government identified a major financial shortfall at the company. In December, the Finance Ministry approved the financing after reviewing the terms of the operation and the postal company’s restructuring plan, which was considered central to making the credit operation viable.

The federal guarantee proved crucial in the negotiations because it lowered borrowing costs. In operations of this kind, the guarantee functions essentially as insurance: if the state-owned company fails to make the payments, the Treasury assumes responsibility for the debt.

The transaction proceeded after the publication of a government ordinance allowing Finance Ministry officials to consider measures in Correios’ financial-rebalancing plan during the guarantee analysis, even though those measures had not yet been implemented.

TCU auditors noted that the procedure deviated from the standard process, which typically assesses the company’s current financial status during the analysis.

In the view of the TCU technical staff, the irregularity stems precisely from the Treasury’s interpretation of the ordinance published on Dec. 12, which established criteria for assessing the repayment capacity of self-sustaining federal state-owned companies.

According to the auditors, the rule may have been used to circumvent a more rigorous analysis of Correios’ financial condition, thereby diminishing the National Treasury Secretariat’s institutional role in mitigating fiscal risks and protecting federal interests.

The assessment was conducted as part of an audit examining the macroeconomic aspects of state-owned companies, overseen by TCU member Benjamin Zymler.

The TCU also argues that the Treasury’s review process appears to have been limited to formally verifying the existence of financial projections in Correios’s restructuring plan, without conducting a deeper examination of the feasibility of the proposed measures, the company’s solvency, or the deterioration in its cash flow.

Auditors also suggest that if Correios cannot repay the loan, the federal guarantee might have served not only to reduce borrowing costs but also to defer fiscal impacts that would otherwise directly impact government accounts and debt. Finally, auditors also considered the timeline used by the Treasury to approve the operation unusually short.

The guarantee was authorized on Dec. 18, 2025, just three business days after the Treasury received the final version of the restructuring plan and six business days after the federal government’s interministerial corporate-governance committee approved the proposal. The committee, known as CGPAR, oversees governance and federal shareholdings in state-run companies. According to the auditors, the time frame was incompatible with the transaction’s complexity and reinforced the perception that Correios’ repayment capacity had not been thoroughly analyzed.

Negotiations over the loan late last year dragged on for several weeks amid the deterioration of Correios’ financial situation. Initially, the state-run company sought R$20 billion in financing, which it considered necessary to fund its restructuring plan in 2025 and 2026. During the initial stages of the negotiations, some banks reportedly offered financing at rates equivalent to 136% of the CDI benchmark interbank rate, a level that the federal government rejected.

The Treasury’s ceiling for operations of this type is 120% of the CDI.

Correios therefore decided to split the fundraising into stages and managed to conclude the first round—totaling R$12 billion—at a cost of 115% of the CDI benchmark. Because the restructuring plan calls for a total of R$20 billion in loans, the company is expected to seek a new round of financing later this year.

However, instead of the R$8 billion initially expected to complete the amount, the next operation is now expected to total around R$7 billion, as previously reported by Valor. In 2025, Correios reported a net loss of R$8.5 billion. Today, the company’s monthly cash flow shows a deficit of approximately R$700 million.

*By Guilherme Pimenta and Giordanna Neves — Brasília

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/