Waterfall Is Bingo Busted

The Estadão reports: SÃO PAULO -  The leaders of a gang specializating in one-armed bandit gambling machines were arrested today as part of Operation Monte Carlo, a joint effort by the federal police, the federal prosecutor’s office and in a supporting role, the federaltax authority. The factoid dislodges a memory of my very first day in Sambodia, [...]

Ginga | Stuck in the Middleware

The Brazilian government’s controversial commitment to the sponsorhip of open source software and standards for government use has not been as unwavering as advocates — painted as Communist plotters by the opposing lobby — had hoped. In 2009, President da Silva claimed savings of some $250 million from such projects. I have tracked a couple [...]

ALL & Cosan | The Sugar Cane Train

Brasil Econômico reports on movements in the Brazilian in the invariably compelling sugarcane industry, dominated by dark horse Coopersucar and odds-on favorite Cosan. Fitch Ratings has today — 24 Janurary — reaffirmed the rating assigned to Cosan, and Cosan subsidiaries Cosan Combustíveis e Lubrificantes; Cosan Overseas Limited; Cosan Lubrificantes e Especialidades; CCL Finance Limited; and Cosan [...]

March Media Maneuvers | Brasilianas

Brasilianas alerts us to rumored structural readjustments of the Brazilian media sector. Universo Online, UOL, recently went private as part of a strategy dictated by shareholder Banco Pactual. Market rumors are that the next step will be to go public again, this time in New York. A second maneuver — and this remains in the realm [...]

Brazilian M&A | 56 YTD

So what shows up the Sambodian business radar today? Well, in the past month,  Brazil has celebrated 56 M&A deals, according to the Estado de S. Paulo, which essentially just cut-and-pastes from a PWC report. At the top of the list: Equity International’s acquisition of Thá; Estapar’s purchase of Brascan Open Mall; Buscapé, with the Resolva.me [...]

Ash Wednesday | The Criminal Record of Casa Verde

According to the Estado de S. Paulo, this year’s Carnaval celebration was marred by incidents that badly damaged the public image of its corporate sponsors. The lensmaker Transitions saw its brand tainted with scenes of violence and vandalism during the tallying of judges’ scores on Tuesday. A member of the carnival society Império de Casa [...]

Culture Wars | Pagef***er Strikes Back

Via Folha de S. Paulo (Brazil) The state high court of  São Paulo has handed down a restraining order obliging Google to exclude sites from its search results that retransmit, live and without authorization, the  TV programming of the Globo network. The order obtained by Globo and Globosat was handed down by Judge Denise Cavalcante Fortes Martins [...]

Sambodia | Apocalypse Ash Wednesday

iG reports from downtown São Paulo on acts of vandalism that marred this year’s carnival festivities: Mayor Gilberto Kassab promised punishment for carnaval societies involved in the tumul during tabulation of judges’ scoring of the city’s competitive Carnaval parades on Tuesday. “We will be relentless”, he said during a press conference today at the Anhembi samba [...]

Tuesday Newsday | Carnaval

In a scene reminiscent of Bush v. Gore (2000), the voting process for this year’s competitive Carnaval parades in São Paulo is beset by chaos. As the envelopes with the jurors’ votes inside were opened on Tuesday afternoon, Tiago Ciro Tadeu Farias, 29, wearing the T-shirt of Império de Casa Verde, broke into the location [...]

Vulture Culture | An Impromptu Link Sociology

Item: SEC Launches Inquiry Aimed at Private Equity. Federal regulators have launched a wide-ranging inquiry into the private-equity industry that examines how firms value their investments, among other matters. The Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division sent letters to private-equity firms of various sizes in early December as part of an “informal inquiry,” according to the [...]