New BNDES directors assume their posts amid major challenges

The board of Brazilian development bank BNDES approved new management, while business leaders urged the institution to keep its focus on structuring concessions and PPPs.

Aloizio Mercadante will be lead director, Alexandre Corrêa Abreu will head finance and digital credit, José Luis Gordon public and socio-environmental management and industry, services and foreign trade, Nelson Barbosa Filho strategic planning, sanitation, transport and energy, and Luiz Augusto de Britto Filho integrity and compliance.

Industry representatives hope the new body will consider the dire situation of public finances.

“With the serious fiscal problem Brazil is facing, the solution to increase infrastructure investments is to continue the concessions agenda, which brings private investment,” Paulo Camillo Penna, president of cement industry association SNIC, told BNamericas.

Previous leadership heavily focused on structuring infrastructure and sanitation concessions and PPPs.

Many contracts have been signed and investments promised, so BNDES may also help more companies with financing, as it already does in the sanitation segment.

"We’re going to see a diversification of financing instruments, whether through infrastructure debentures or public financing, among others. I see companies looking for a variety of financing mechanisms, because the need for investment is high," Gustavo Mueller, a Fitch Ratings sanitation sector expert, told BNamericas in an interview.