British natural gas firm BG Group Plc said on Tuesday it had signed a definitive binding agreement to sell its entire 60.1% stake in Comgas to Brazilian energy company Cosan S.A. for 3.4 billion Brazilian Reais, which is about $1.7 billion at current exchange rates.
Sweden's premier defense and security company, Saab, is strengthening its relationship with a Brazilian integrator of aero-structures. Saab, manufacturer of the Gripen jet fighter that has partnered in the past with the company Akaer, said it is now financially investing in the company.
Spain’s leading bank Santander denied any plan to sell its Brazilian affiliate full or partly, as was published in the Sao Paulo media following discussions with Bradesco, another top listed Brazilian bank.
Spain’s King Juan Carlos will be travelling to Brazil and Chile in the first week of June to strengthen ties with two strategic associates and in preparation of the Ibero-American summit to take place in Cadiz. The King will be accompanied by Foreign Affairs minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo and a business delegation.
Brazilian banks must lower their lending rates by between 30% and 40%, and increase lending, without raising fees, to help spur economic growth, Finance Minister Guido Mantega said in an interview with the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper.
Brazil has a plan to bolster subsidized credit aimed at increasing corporate investment with 45 billion Real (approx 22.5 billion dollars) from the country’s development bank, BNDES.
British drinks group Diageo is buying a maker of Brazil's most popular spirit, cachaça for about 470 million dollars, boosting its expansion in fast-growing emerging markets while it fights for a bigger prize in tequila.
Finance minister Guido Mantega said that Brazil has double the reserves when the 2008 global recession and is prepared to confront a deepening of the European crisis but admitted that the economy would expand below 3.5% which is less than was targeted at the beginning of the year.
A huge orchestra comprising 700 children from seven Latin American countries, plus China and South Korea, played music from the soundtrack of “The Mission” as the Iguazú Falls shared by Argentina and Brazil were officially inaugurated one of the New7Wonders of Nature.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff announced Friday that she is vetoing some of the controversial amendments to the country’s Forest Code that would have substantially weakened the country’s forest protection and climate mitigation actions.