Notícias
12/23/2007
New kings of alcohol hail from the financial market
Agência Estado
The players in a new wave of expansion in the sugar-alcohol sector are nothing like the plant owners who earned fame and money in decades past. They are investors accustomed with the speculative world of the financial market and are ready to face great risks in order to pocket huge fortunes. In the last two years, they have poured billions of dollars into the country, have bought dozens of plants, and have kicked off another batch of ethanol production projects.
There are some heavyweight names in the group, such as Hungarian George Soros, Indian Vinod Khosla, American asset administrator Wellington Management, investment funds Kidd & Company, Stark, and Och Ziff Management, and Merrill Lynch bank, among others. They have all come to the country with an eye to the promising future of green fuels, which picked up speed with petrol’s price boom and growing worries about global warming.
Each one of them has a different strategy. Some prefer to buy plants that are ready, others are associating with local producers, and there are even those who are going for new projects. In the case of Comanche Clean Energy, the formula was to combine options. The company, headquartered abroad and made up of American and English institutional investors, made its debut in Brazil this year with the purchase of a biodiesel factory and two alcohol distilleries. In the first take, the company raised US$ 85 million abroad and should look for more resources to expand the plants and build a biofuel business hub in Maranhão state.
The US$ 300 million project will be made up of a biodiesel and an ethanol plant, as well as energy generation. “We are building a bridge to bring foreign money to Brazil's biofuels market”, says Comanche Vice President in Brazil, João Pesciotto. According to him, the company’s plants will be the most modern in the country. “We are using new techniques to increase productivity. We want more efficiency and reduced costs, because the commodity is worth every cent”.
Despite the ethanol fever, the new investors are selective in their choice of projects and ventures to buy into. Marcelo Junqueira confidently talks of the entire course that led to the creation of Clean Energy Brazil (CEB), an investment fund with stocks traded on the London Stock Market. The grandson of plant owners, he was responsible for presenting the sugar-alcohol industry to the foreigners.
The players in a new wave of expansion in the sugar-alcohol sector are nothing like the plant owners who earned fame and money in decades past. They are investors accustomed with the speculative world of the financial market and are ready to face great risks in order to pocket huge fortunes. In the last two years, they have poured billions of dollars into the country, have bought dozens of plants, and have kicked off another batch of ethanol production projects.
There are some heavyweight names in the group, such as Hungarian George Soros, Indian Vinod Khosla, American asset administrator Wellington Management, investment funds Kidd & Company, Stark, and Och Ziff Management, and Merrill Lynch bank, among others. They have all come to the country with an eye to the promising future of green fuels, which picked up speed with petrol’s price boom and growing worries about global warming.
Each one of them has a different strategy. Some prefer to buy plants that are ready, others are associating with local producers, and there are even those who are going for new projects. In the case of Comanche Clean Energy, the formula was to combine options. The company, headquartered abroad and made up of American and English institutional investors, made its debut in Brazil this year with the purchase of a biodiesel factory and two alcohol distilleries. In the first take, the company raised US$ 85 million abroad and should look for more resources to expand the plants and build a biofuel business hub in Maranhão state.
The US$ 300 million project will be made up of a biodiesel and an ethanol plant, as well as energy generation. “We are building a bridge to bring foreign money to Brazil's biofuels market”, says Comanche Vice President in Brazil, João Pesciotto. According to him, the company’s plants will be the most modern in the country. “We are using new techniques to increase productivity. We want more efficiency and reduced costs, because the commodity is worth every cent”.
Despite the ethanol fever, the new investors are selective in their choice of projects and ventures to buy into. Marcelo Junqueira confidently talks of the entire course that led to the creation of Clean Energy Brazil (CEB), an investment fund with stocks traded on the London Stock Market. The grandson of plant owners, he was responsible for presenting the sugar-alcohol industry to the foreigners.
