RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 22 – Brazilian pension fund Previ, one of iron ore miner Vale SA’s largest shareholders, will not sell part of its stake before the year ends, its chief executive officer said on Monday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Rio de Janeiro, CEO Jose Mauricio Coelho said the fund intended to reduce its stake in the miner over the medium term. Previ had previously announced plans for the sale without saying when.
Previ, which manages pensions for the employees of state-controlled Banco do Brasil SA, changed the way it accounts for the stake in its financial statements, marking Vale shares monthly at an average market value of the previous 90 days.
Previously, Brazil’s largest pension fund was only allowed to revise the share price once a year.
Vale’s shares have risen 80 percent over the last 12 months. Previ, Brazil’s biggest pension fund, retains the shares through a holding company, Litel Participações SA.
After the accounting move, Previ posted a surplus of 2.3 billion reais in September and reversed a deficit in the year.
Chief Investment Officer Marcus Moreira de Almeida said at the conference that Litel’s shareholders, which also includes pension funds Petros, Funcef and Fundação Cesp, were discussing how Litel would distribute the Vale shares directly to the funds.
No share sale will occur before this distribution, which seeks the most tax-efficient way to sell the stakes, he added.
(By Carolina Mandl; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
