Brazil’s central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged at a six-year high and stopped short of endorsing imminent reductions, frustrating a growing campaign for looser monetary policy from President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, business leaders and top politicians, Bloomberg News reported. Policymakers kept the benchmark Selic at 13.75% for a seventh straight meeting as widely anticipated late on Wednesday.

The previous management team at Brazilian retailer Americanas SA carried out fraudulent accounting practices and hid them from investors and the board of directors, according to a filing on Tuesday and comments from the current chief executive officer, Bloomberg News reported. The former executive team, led by then Chief Executive Officer Miguel Gutierrez, created false advertising contracts as a way to reduce costs on the balance sheet that ballooned to 21.7 billion reais ($4.5 billion) as of Sept.

Retail sales in Brazil rose for the second consecutive month in April driven by Easter sales, data from government statistics agency IBGE showed on Wednesday, but that was still not enough for them to meet market expectations, Reuters reported. Sales increased 0.1% in the month compared with March, IBGE said in a report, boosted by supermarket shopping but slightly below consensus of 0.3% from economists polled by Reuters, as growth lost steam from the previous month.

Brazilian airline Azul on Tuesday launched exchange offers aimed at pushing forward bonds originally set to mature in 2024 and 2026, the latest move in a broader restructuring plan it expects to remove an overhang on its stock, Reuters reported. The exchange offers total $1 billion and follow a deal with aircraft lessors to give them equity and tradeable debt in exchange for lower payments, a deal seen reducing lease payments by a total 5.4 billion reais ($1.11 billion) in the long term.

The main shareholders at embattled Brazilian retailer Americanas SA tentatively have agreed to retain their stake for about three years as part of a restructuring plan, Bloomberg News reported. The precise lock-up period for the billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Marcel Telles and Carlos Sicupira is still under discussion and creditors are requiring it to last into 2027 as a guarantee shareholders will keep helping to rescue the company, the people said, asking not to be named because the negotiations are not public. Lemann, Telles and Sicupira declined to comment.

Brazilian economists have reduced their long-term inflation expectations, putting an end to months of unchanged projections that the central bank had cited as a cause for concern, Reuters reported. According to the median forecast of a weekly central bank survey on Monday, 2025 inflation projections now stand at 3.9%, down from the previous estimate of 4.0% calculated since March 24. The expectation for 2026 has also decreased to 3.88% from the previous 4.0% forecast since March 17.

Investment bankers are counting on massive auctions of energy transmission lines for a pickup in Brazil’s share sales, Bloomberg News reported. Projects demanding as much as 70 billion reais ($14 billion) in investments are expected to be auctioned through the end of 2024 and lure several publicly traded Brazilian firms. These companies, in turn, will likely need to fund their growth through local-debt issuances and share offerings, according to Felipe Thut, the head of Banco Bradesco SA’s investment-banking arm. “The utilities sector is this year’s hottest,” Thut said in an interview.

Investor Nelson Tanure said he’ll vote in favor of the bankruptcy process for Rio de Janeiro’s power company Light SA at a Wednesday shareholders’ meeting, making the approval of the measure practically certain, Bloomberg News reported. “We are looking for a completely uniform direction for the company,” Tanure said in an interview. Tanure, a veteran investor in distressed assets in Brazil, holds a 21.8% stake in Light through the fund WNT Gestora de Recursos Ltda, after starting to buy shares when they went declined this year.

Consumer prices in Brazil decelerated more than expected in May, government data showed on Wednesday, with 12-month inflation hitting its lowest level in more than two years and dropping below the 4% mark for the first time since late 2020, Reuters reported. The figures are likely to add weight to calls by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government and business people for the central bank to lower its key interest rate from the current six-year high of 13.75%.

Brazil's central bank abstained from involvement in developing the government's comprehensive consumer debt renegotiation program unveiled on Monday, two central bank directors said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Speaking at a news conference, Renato Gomes, the director of the financial system organization, said that policymakers solely furnished information without actively contributing to the program's design.