Delta's D-Day

247– Delta Engenharia is crumbling in public – and this Wednesday, the 16th, could be D-Day for the construction company, which at any moment could be declared ineligible by the Comptroller General of the Union. Minister Jorge Hage, head of the agency, has already shown that he will undoubtedly issue the fatal blow, which, technically, will prevent Delta from participating in works and consortia financed by public agents, such as BNDES and Caixa Econômica Federal, for example. In practice, the ineligibility will mean the interruption of a flow of resources estimated at R$ 3 billion, the sum of contracts signed with the construction company for works under the PAC – Growth Acceleration Plan. Spontaneously, or through the actions of its contractors in the states, Delta is already dismantling its own house. There is no risk, however, that the company's ousted president, Fernando Cavendish, will suffer a major blow to his personal life, even after the implosion of his legal entity. Last year alone, he increased shareholder remuneration to R$65 million, slashing overall profits but keeping the lion's share of the accounting maneuver. Now, he is orchestrating from behind the scenes a strategy of abandoning construction sites as a way to cut company expenses, albeit at a high social cost, with worker layoffs and widespread disruption of the PAC (Growth Acceleration Program) due to the reestablishment of partnerships and schedules. President Dilma Rousseff is especially concerned about this aspect of Delta's sudden disappearance.

After defaulting on a R$6 million debt in March and abruptly abandoning the consortium for the construction of the Maracanã stadium in Rio, Cavendish's Delta continued its self-destruction strategy. The following month, it left the Transcarioca consortium, forcing a reorganization of plans for the construction of a road between Galeão Airport and Barra da Tijuca. On Tuesday the 15th, a similar procedure took place in Fortaleza. The company terminated its contract for urban mobility works in the city for the 2014 World Cup. On the same day, Petrobras excluded Delta from the Comperj project, the Rio Petrochemical Complex.

Businessman Fernando Cavendish, in this process, managed, to the surprise of some, to escape to a position that is, until now, comfortable. His summons to the Cachoeira Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, where he would be confronted about bids won with the help of the criminal scheme coordinated by Carlinhos Cachoeira, hasn't even been considered yet. On the other hand, by stepping down as president of the company, Cavendish left the toughest decisions to his successor and secured for himself the argument, to be presented in court in the future, that he went bankrupt due to asphyxiation and mismanagement by the government and the team that took his place. Clever.

Without having invested a single real to become the owner of the company through his holding company J&F, businessman Joesley Batista believes he is on top of this whole mess. After Delta is declared ineligible, which could happen, again, today, he will be able to verify what actually remains of the contractor's contracts with the government. It won't be the Delta with the R$3 billion PAC contract, but it could still be a company with solid partners in the consortia in which it participates, with good payment flow and projects in advanced stages of development. From this perspective, neither the captain who abandons ship Cavendish nor the new helmsman Batista will lose. And the complex accounting of what will be received and what has been frozen since the company was declared ineligible will end up in court, where only the Union will stand to lose.