Take a look at the highlights of the Reuters article about OEC’s present moment and its prospects

OEC anticipates USD18 billion in new projects and IPO by 2020

Reuters – Odebrecht Engineering & Construction (OEC) defined the goal of achieving a portfolio of approximately USD 18 billion in projects in Brazil and abroad in the next two years, while it makes progress with preparing to list shares on the stock exchange by the beginning of 2020, said the company CEO, Fabio Januário.

“Our goal is to win one in every four tenders we take part in”, said Januário in an interview with Reuters.

According to Januário, the recovery of commodity prices and increased investment capacity in Brazil, in a context of approving reforms, such as social security, at the start of 2019, may create a more promising environment to resume projects, mainly by the federal government.

Having signed an agreement with the Attorney General’s Office (AGU), the Ministry of Transparency and the Comptroller General’s Office in July to indemnify the government for the misappropriation of funds, OEC intends to finalize similar agreements in all the other markets where it operates by the end of the year.  This will enable the company to concentrate all its efforts on recovering its project portfolio.

The first consequence of this movement was suspension of the freeze on providing services to Petrobras last month, which should be formalized in the coming weeks.

The company has just signed an agreement with the equivalent of the public prosecution service (Fiscalia) of Peru, one of its main markets outside Brazil, for a final agreement in up to 45 days.

“We are going to solve our problems, while respecting each country’s procedural timetable”, said Januário. “But we are not going to leave any of our current markets.”

In fact, OEC’s plan even includes expanding its international markets. A new and more immediate destination could be Tanzania, in East Africa which, in October, will define the winner to construct a hydroelectric plant, in a contract evaluated at approximately USD 3 billion.

CHANGES 

Twenty-five years in the group, Januário was appointed CEO of OEC at the end of 2016, at a time when the conglomerate was facing one of the worst moments of its 73-year history.

As part of the process to clean up its image, OEC was forced to opt out of the public tenders in which it identified flaws.

According to the CEO of the construction company in Brazil, José Eduardo Quintella, last year the company contested more public tenders than won bids.

One of the most recent was a request for suspension made by OEC of the government of Ceará tender to expand the Fortaleza metro system, a project estimated at BRL 1.7 billion.

While it adapts to compliance and governance standards, the company is in the final stage of assembling a board with four independent members from a total of seven, including the former CEO of Eletropaulo, Britaldo Soares and Ana Novaes, former director of CVM.