MP neutraliza efeitos de nova lei contábil

Jornal do Commercio
12/01/2009
O ano mal começou e os escritórios de advocacia já se preparam para discutir com seus clientes o melhor planejamento tributário para 2009. O debate gira em torno da Medida Provisória nº 449, aprovada em 3 de dezembro último, para alterar a legislação relativa ao parcelamento de débitos tributários, conceder remição em alguns casos e instituir outras providências. A novidade fica por conta do Regime Tributário de Transição (RTT), criado pela norma para neutralizar os efeitos da Lei 11.638, de dezembro de 2007, que modificou o sistema contábil.
A Lei 11.638 alterou a legislação contábil do Brasil para adequá-la a padrões internacionais. Deveria ter vindo acompanhada de ajustes na legislação fiscal. Como isso não ocorreu, o governo introduziu, por meio da MP 449, o RTT para que as empresas pudessem apurar seus impostos de acordo com as normas contábeis vigentes em 31 de dezembro de 2007 e, assim, evitar eventuais prejuízos às companhias que pudessem advir das novas regras contábeis.
Segundo a MP, "o RTT vigerá até a entrada em vigor da lei que discipline os efeitos tributários dos novos métodos e critérios contábeis, buscando a neutralidade tributária". O novo regime será obrigatório a partir de 2010, inclusive para apuração do Imposto sobre a Renda com base no lucro presumido ou arbitrado, da Contribuição Social sobre o Lucro Líquido (CSLL), da Contribuição para Programa de Integração Social (PIS) e da Contribuição para o Financiamento da Seguridade Social (Cofins). Os contribuintes, no entanto, podem antecipar-se e optar pela nova regra já no ano-calendário referente à apuração dos tributos do ano passado.

IFRS e mercado de contabilidade

Revista Contábil
12/01/2009
Mais uma vez o assunto volta à tona. A implantação das IFRS no Brasil aquecerá significativamente o mercado de contabilidade, com a demanda de profissionais capacitados para implementar as significativas mudanças, não apenas na estrutura das demonstrações contábeis e até de novas demonstrações, mas sobretudo para fazer valer o subjetivismo exigido pelos critérios de valoração de ativos e passivos exigidos pelas referidas normas, recepcionadas pela Lei 11.638/2008 e regulamentadas pelo CPC.
Mas o que chama a atenção é o papel das empresas de auditoria independente que darão parecer sobre estas demonstrações adaptadas às novas normas.
Pelo mundo afora as grandes empresas de auditoria tentam explicar porque não viram nas contabilidades auditadas os problemas que desencadearam os grandes escândalos contábeis.
Vamos esperar que no Brasil seja diferente. Que nossos auditores estejam altamente capacitados para auditor os números subjetivos da "nova contabildiade" utilizando critérios bem objetivos para detectar qualquer maquiagem.

China quer ser a primeira a sair da crise, diz premiê

Agência Estado
12/01/2009
A China quer se tornar o primeiro país a se recuperar da crise econômica global, disse o premiê chinês Wen Jiabao, segundo o jornal oficial "China Daily". A declaração foi feita quando Jiabao visitava, no fim de semana, a província de Jiangsu, no leste do país. A província é uma das regiões dependentes de exportações que foram duramente atingidas pela crise nos últimos meses.
"Nosso objetivo é ser os primeiros a se recuperar da crise financeira", disse o premiê. "Devemos ter fé e determinação", acrescentou. A economia chinesa cresceu 9% no terceiro trimestre do ano passado, o nível mais baixo desde meados de 2003, e a expansão pode cair para 7,5% neste ano, segundo a previsão do Banco Mundial. Tal nível de crescimento não era visto desde 1990.
A China apresentou no final do ano passado um pacote de gastos de 4 trilhões de yuans (US$ 585 bilhões) para reanimar a economia. "Nossas medidas já tiveram efeito", disse Jiabao, segundo o diário. Ele acrescentou que os dados econômicos para dezembro foram "melhores do que o esperado". A divulgação dos principais dados sobre a economia no mês passado deve ocorrer na próxima semana.
O primeiro-ministro sugeriu que novas medidas foram levantadas para impulsionar o crescimento da economia chinesa, disse o China Daily. Jiabao teria afirmado que o governo vai acelerar o investimento de 600 bilhões de yuans em seis grandes projetos já aprovados como parte de um plano piloto para o desenvolvimento científico e tecnológico. Ele não especificou quais seriam os projetos, mas o jornal observou que fazem parte do plano o programa espacial tripulado e o avião jumbo de passageiros a ser construído na China.

Acordo sobre gás boliviano deve custar US$ 270 milhões

Agência Estado
12/01/2009
A decisão do governo de atender aos pedidos da Bolívia e aumentar de 19 para cerca de 24 milhões de metros cúbicos a compra de gás do país andino deverá custar cerca de US$ 270 milhões ao Brasil, segundo cálculos preliminares. No início da tarde de sexta-feira passada o ministro de Minas e Energia, Edison Lobão, anunciou que a compra de gás boliviano fora reduzida de 30 para 19 milhões de metros cúbicos por dia, o que geraria, para o Brasil, uma economia de US$ 600 milhões até abril.
Horas depois, após receber uma comitiva boliviana liderada pelo ministro do Planejamento, Carlos Villegas, Lobão informou que a importação do combustível subiria para 24 milhões de metros cúbicos. Com o recuo, a economia com a compra de gás deverá cair dos US$ 600 milhões para cerca de US$ 330 milhões.
O governo negou que o recuo tenha tido motivação política. Mas a primeira decisão (de reduzir para 19 milhões de metros cúbicos) foi ratificada por um colegiado técnico, o Comitê de Monitoramento do Setor Elétrico (CMSE). A segunda, de elevar as compras, foi anunciada após uma reunião de caráter político e diplomático, da qual participaram o assessor da Presidência para Assuntos Internacionais, Marco Aurélio Garcia, e o secretário-geral do Itamaraty, embaixador Samuel Pinheiro Guimarães.
"Não deu outra, mais uma vez o Brasil está ajudando a Bolívia, e com o nosso dinheiro", disse o consultor Adriano Pires, do Centro Brasileiro de Infraestrutura (CBIE).
O ex-diretor-geral da Agência Nacional do Petróleo (ANP) David Zylbersztajn também criticou a mudança repentina de postura do governo brasileiro. "É um vai e vem, que traz uma situação de total indefinição", disse.
Para Adriano Pires, a Bolívia pressionou o Brasil para evitar uma "perda dupla" em um dos setores mais importantes de sua economia. Isso porque, com a queda da cotação do petróleo, a próxima revisão contratual do preço do gás - que deve acontecer até abril - deve levar a uma redução das tarifas pagas pela Petrobras. Na sua estimativa, o preço deverá cair dos atuais US$ 8 a US$ 9 por milhão de BTU (unidade de medição do gás) para US$ 5 por milhão de BTU. "Eles devem ter pedido para dividir essa conta com o Brasil", disse Pires.

Perspectivas econômicas para 2009 são desanimadoras, diz ‘NYT’

The New York Times / David Jolly
12/01/2009
Depois de um ano catastrófico para os mercados financeiros, os investidores abalados estão emergindo de suas trincheiras para perguntar se 2009 será melhor. O consenso entre os profissionais é de que não devemos esperar a acentuada recuperação que costuma se seguir a uma desaceleração forte.
As ações perderam 42% de seu valor em 2008, no cômputo do índice mundial MSCI, o que reduziu em cerca de US$ 29 trilhões o valor de mercado das empresas de capital aberto e reverteu todos os ganhos conquistados desde 2003. Os únicos ativos que prosperaram foram os títulos dos governos de países desenvolvidos e o ouro, cujos preços subiram à medida que os investidores corriam em busca de proteção.
O ano começou com um choque, mas apenas um grupo isolado de pessimistas previa o desastre que estava por surgir. Quando o Société Générale sofreu prejuízos de US$ 6,8 bilhões com as posições não autorizadas assumidas por um operador de baixo escalão, em janeiro, parecia que aquela seria a maior notícia financeira do ano. Mas o prejuízo se provaria trivial diante do que veio a acontecer posteriormente.
As más notícias pareciam surgir sem descanso: o Bear Stearns quebrou no segundo trimestre e, depois de algumas semanas de aparente calma, o Lehman Brothers desabou em setembro, o que foi seguido pela aquisição da Merrill Lynch, pelo resgate governamental à seguradora AIG, pelo colapso dos negócios de Bernard Madoff e pela quase falência da General Motors (GM).

Global property investors see surge in spending

Mon Jan 12, 2009 12:03am EST
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Foreign investors in real estate expect to spend much more in 2009 than they did in 2008, according to an annual report tracking institutional investor interest.
Both foreign lenders and equity investors plan to increase investment globally and in the United States, their favored international investment target, report members of the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE).
Lenders expect to boost investment by 54 percent globally and by 58 percent in the United States, while equity investors see increases of 40 percent globally and 73 percent in the United States.
The United States has more appeal this year, even after the economic tumult of 2008, and despite the painful impact of the global credit crunch on commercial real estate, said Jim Fetgatter, AFIRE's chief executive.
U.S. commercial property sales are down 73 percent to $139.43 billion in 2008 compared with 2007, according to research firm Real Capital Analytics. The shares of U.S. real estate investment trusts, or REITs, are off about 62 percent from their highs in February 2007, as measured by the benchmark MSCI US REIT Index .RMZ.
But investors' appetite for U.S. real estate has only sharpened in the face of these difficulties because the problems are a global phenomenon. The United States remains the world's largest and to AFIRE's members the safest real estate market, Fetgatter said.
"If you are going to be an international investor you'll want a significant part of your portfolio in the largest market," he added.
By a large margin, the survey's respondents consider the United States the country providing the most stable and secure real estate investments, with 53 percent deeming it tops in that category.
Germany and Switzerland, each with 11.3 percent of the vote, tied for second place while Australia and Canada tied for third place with 4.8 percent.
In another way, the tough economic conditions are in themselves a draw for investors betting assets might come onto the U.S. market that were not available during the boom years, Fetgatter pointed out.
Washington, D.C. topped the list of preferred cities, followed by London, New York, Tokyo and Shanghai.
In the U.S. market, AFIRE's members replaced last year's favorite property type, office, with multifamily residential real estate, such as apartment buildings. Office fell to second place, followed by industrial, retail and hotel.
The housing slump, which is making the purchase of a home either more difficult or less attractive to U.S. citizens, caused AFIRE's members to favor multifamily over office this year on the theory more people will be renting.
Some 37 percent of AFIRE's members voted the United States the best country for capital appreciation, with Brazil in second place with 16 percent. Brazil displaced China, which fell into third place. The United Kingdom jumped to fourth place from ninth after asset prices fell there. India fell to fifth place from third.
About half of Washington, D.C.-based AFIRE's 200 members responded to the organization's seventeenth annual survey. AFIRE members are from 21 countries and hold about $1 trillion of real estate, including $371 billion in the United States.
(Reporting by Helen Chernikoff; Editing by Andre Grenon)

Emerging Markets, Down Now, May Offer Bargains

The New York Times
By CONRAD DE AENLLE
Published: January 10, 2009
THE love affair with emerging markets has turned cold. Stocks everywhere had a horrible year, but the performance in developing economies was especially bad, and the bigger they were, the harder they fell.
The MSCI Barra BRIC index, comprising companies in the four largest emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China — lost 60.3 percent in 2008. That compares with 54.5 percent for the broader-based MSCI Emerging Markets index and 38.5 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index.
If the sellers tried to explain their disenchantment with the BRICs and the rest of the developing world, the best way might be to invoke that most unsatisfying of excuses: “It’s not you, it’s me.”
Many global crises of the past have arisen in emerging markets. Poor political and economic judgment led to excessive debt, shrunken corporate profits, much weaker growth and widening imbalances in fiscal and trade accounts.
There are similar troubles today, but they started in the mature Western economies, which are suffering from huge indebtedness, defaults and recession, and ballooning fiscal deficits created by kitchen-sink stimulus plans. In emerging countries, by contrast, economic output continues to grow, albeit more slowly than before, and finances are sound, supported by prudent policies and huge and expanding stockpiles of foreign currency.
“The shoe is on the other foot,” said Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management. Recalling the most serious global financial breakdown before this one, he added: “During the ’97-’98 crisis, Asian companies and banks owed U.S. dollars and not the other way around. Now countries have tremendous foreign reserves and are in a much stronger position.”
Investment advisers and international organizations forecast economic growth to be 6 percent or more this year in China and India and a few percentage points less in Brazil and Russia. In the United States, Japan and Western Europe, the recession is expected to linger for much of the year.
Jonathan Bell, a manager of the Forward Emerging Markets fund, is interested in differences among the BRICs, not just between them and other markets. He expects long-term growth rates and share-price performance to diverge across the BRICs because of differences in the quality of political leadership. In his view, China and Brazil are very well run, Russia is not and India is somewhere in between.
The connection among the four has always been tenuous. Their industrial bases, political systems and overall progress varies, but they are populous countries that have narrowed the development gap with wealthier, more mature ones. Those similarities enabled investment firms to package and sell them as ready-for-prime-time emerging markets.
But not lately. The resilience of the BRICs and other emerging economies has not kept the public from dumping their stocks aggressively. Investment advisers attribute the weakness to a general aversion to risk, which keeps money flowing into assets deemed safe and close to home, like Treasury bonds, and out of anything volatile and far away.
Beyond that, investors in mature economies need the money. Forced selling by hedge funds and others with heavy losses and unwieldy debt loads is also thought to have played a role. The BRIC markets have been hit especially hard because they are dominated by large, actively traded companies that are easy to sell — but they also tend to benefit first in a rebound.
“When confidence globally comes back, it’s the BRICs that will lead the recovery,” predicted Josephine Jiménez, chief investment officer of Victoria 1522 Investments in San Francisco. Confidence is still hard to glimpse, but as the financial crisis plays out, stocks in the spurned BRIC markets are starting to look desirable again to fund managers and strategists. With global conditions still unsettled, however, some prefer to play hard-to-get and not rush into anything.
Simon Hallett, co-manager of the Harding Loevner Emerging Markets fund, became cautious last year, sooner than many of his peers, but low valuations after the “sharp and brutal reversal” are turning him bullish again.
“The risks in the world are in the U.S., U.K. and the fringes of Western Europe,” he said, concurring with Mr. Mobius. By contrast, “investors are starting to get paid to take emerging-market risk. I don’t think the risks have gone up as much as prices have gone down.”
Mr. Hallett says he is interested in “high-quality companies taking their place on the global stage,” and he finds many of them in the BRIC markets. A prime example is Petróleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras, the Brazilian energy company that has grown fast enough to enter the major leagues and compete against the likes of Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell.
“Petrobras is a very good company that happens to be in an emerging market,” he said. “It’s a world leader, and it’s had a tremendous year in terms of finding assets.”
Petrobras is also a favorite of Ms. Jimenez, who is heavily invested in commodities. Her selections include several mining companies, notably Companhia Vale do Rio Doce known as CVRD, and Usinas Siderurgicas de Minas Gerais in Brazil, Polyus Gold in Russia and Zijin Mining and China Molybdenum in China.
Among her other selections are Banco do Brasil and Trisul, a Brazilian property developer.
Ms. Jimenez is steering clear of India, whose stocks she finds expensive, but Mr. Hallett has several holdings there. He praised the country’s leaders for sound economic management during a difficult time, although he wishes that they would upgrade the country’s roads and other infrastructure.
His favorite stocks include the banks HDFC, Icici and Axis, as well as Hindustan Unilever, a large provider of consumer staples.
With so much of the world struggling, Mr. Bell, at the Forward fund, is concentrating on defensive sectors like telecommunications and utilities. His largest holdings include China Mobile, the Russian phone service provider Mobile TeleSystems and Bharti Airtel in India.
“We don’t think things are going to turn around in a V-shaped recovery,” he said.
Mr. Mobius said he was “very positive for markets generally, not just emerging markets,” but he did express some caution.
He said he expects the BRICs to attract new money when investors realize just how cheap these markets are and when it becomes clear that economic stimulus plans are starting to work. While he waits, he prefers defensive plays in consumer industries, like Natura Cosméticos in Brazil and China Green Food, a maker of processed foods.
Another way to emphasize safety, he said, is to own enormous blue chips, companies “that will survive and thrive” through the global crisis. He highlighted China Mobile and a quartet of energy suppliers: PetroChina and Sinopec in China, Lukoil in Russia and, in one more vote of confidence, Petrobras.
ROBERT ARNOTT, the chairman of Research Affiliates, an investment management firm in Los Angeles, says he expects “a fast recovery in emerging markets because there’s more room for growth.” He says he is not sure when it will start, however, so the heavy dependence on exports, especially commodities, in the BRIC economies makes him wary enough to advise avoiding stocks there for now.
A better alternative for him is sovereign and corporate debt. Many issues offer “juicy yields” in the low double digits, he said.
Looking further out, Mr. Arnott becomes more hopeful about BRIC stock markets. He doesn’t recommend them for a casual fling, but he thinks they are ideal for a long-term relationship.
“Investments made today might be regretted one year from now,” he said, “but they won’t be regretted five years from now.”