Governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), will receive an award for the privatization of the Basic Sanitation Company of the State of São Paulo (Sabesp) in New York, United States.
The privatization of the company was completed in June of last year via a follow-on, also known as a subsequent offering of shares, where a company already listed on the Stock Exchange offers new shares.
The concession to the private initiative was surrounded by worker protests in the sector. A study by the Union of Workers in Water, Sewage, and Environmental Services of the State of São Paulo (Sintaema) showed that Governor Tarcísio’s government sold the company’s shares at 44% below the actual value of the company.
According to the entity, the fair value to be received for each Sabesp share would be R$103.90, but Governor Freitas set the price at R$72. The union stated that at that time, Sabesp had a cash flow of R$90.5 billion, from which the debt amount of R$19.5 billion was deducted to estimate the company’s value: R$71 billion.