Our partner Francisco da Costa e Silva spoke with O Globo newspaper about the extrajudicial liquidation of Banco Master. The article discusses how the case brought to light the risky investments that had been made by Rioprevidência, the state civil servants’ pension fund.

According to the article, the agency invested R$ 2.6 billion in financial bills and fixed-income securities in the financial institution and its brokerage firm since 2023, according to an audit by the State Court of Auditors (TCE), which had been warning about irregularities in these operations for a year. Now, even without the certainty that it will receive these amounts back, the Rio government guarantees that payments to retirees and pensioners will not be affected.

Costa e Silva told the newspaper that there is no guarantee that the money invested will be recovered. He explained that all of the bank’s assets will form a pool for the payment of creditors — and the pension fund will be one of them.

Before that, there is a long process to be completed, he says: “Today, Master Bank is an unknown quantity. It is not possible to know today whether the balance sheets were doctored or fraudulent. Only after the intervener takes over and this audit is completed, which could take months, will we have something more concrete. For each CNPJ or CPF, what is guaranteed, in some cases, is R$ 250,000 from the FGC. This is a negligible amount compared to Rioprevidência’s contribution to the institution.”

The article was also published by the InfoMoney portal. Read the full text.