São Paulo – This Thursday (16th), consulting firm Economatica issued a survey according to which the combined profits of listed Brazilian companies reached 26.9 billion reals (US$ 13.3 billion at current exchange rates) in the second quarter this year, down 47.1% from 50.9 billion (US$ 25.1 billion) in the same quarter last year. The survey covered 316 companies listed at the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa).
The highest-profiting institutions were banks, with a combined 11.6 billion reals (US$ 5.7 billion), down 11.1% from 13.1 billion reals (US$ 6.5 billion) in the second quarter of last year. Economatica informed that profits declined in 14 out of 24 sectors surveyed from April to June 2012, and increased in the remaining 10 sectors.
Profits were up in electric power, telecom, software and data, trade, stock and commodities, textiles, appliances, insurance, non-metallic minerals, and insurance brokerage. The stock exchange and insurance brokerage sectors comprised only one company each.
The 292 non-financial companies surveyed had a combined profit of 15.24 billion reals (US$ 7.5 billion), down 59.6% from 37.75 billion (US$ 18.7 billion) in the second quarter of 2011. It is worth noting that Petrobras alone incurred a loss of 1.346 billion (US$ 665.2 million) from April from June 2012, as against a net profit of nearly 11 billion (US$ 5.4 billion) in the same period of 2011.
Not considering Petrobras and mining company Vale, the combined profits of the 290 remaining enterprises amounted to 11.2 billion reals (US$ 5.5 billion), down 31.8% from 16.5 billion reals (US$ 8.1 billion) in quarter two, 2011, according to Economatica.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
