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The Carlyle Group and Guilherme Paulus Raise US$394m in Partial Exit from Brazil’s CVC

11 August 2016

(Reuters) Carlyle Group LP and Brazilian investor Guilherme Paulus raised a combined R$1.23b (US$394m) from the partial sale of their stakes in Brazilian travel agency CVC Brasil Operadora.

CVC Brasil said on Thursday that the so-called restricted efforts offer was priced at R$20.50, representing a 3.8 percent discount to the stock’s closing price of R$21.30 on Wednesday. Carlyle and Paulus had put a combined 60 million shares up for sale, accounting for a 44.7 percent stake.

In a statement, São Paulo-based CVC Brasil said that information on new shareholders and their respective stakes will be available only on Aug. 16, when the transaction is expected to be settled. Before the offering, Carlyle and Paulus had about 69 percent of Brazil’s biggest travel agency.

Shares in the company had shed 18 percent of their value since July 20, when speculation of the combined stake sale began to mount.

The successful conclusion of the transaction underscores the extent to which Brazil’s image has improved in recent weeks among investors.

Expectations that President Dilma Rousseff will be impeached this month are fanning optimism that what critics say are years of interventionist policies and budget profligacy in Latin America’s largest economy are a thing of the past.

Proceeds from the deal will go directly to Carlyle and Paulus, because the transaction was a secondary offering. Both shareholders hired the investment-banking units of Bank of America Corp, Itaú Unibanco Holding SA and Morgan Stanley & Co to manage the transaction.

Public offerings with restricted efforts differ from standard equity offerings in that a company does not have to request registration of the plan with securities industry watchdog CVM, only qualified investors can participate, and the deals cannot be marketed through road shows or the media.

Prior to the CVC Brasil deal, Brazilian companies and their shareholders had raised 3.416 billion reais through restricted-efforts offerings in four transactions.