Economics
The Professor at the Heart of Brazil's Market Meltdown
- BNDES loan practices are focus of congressional probe
- Lawmakers grill banker on loans to billionaire party backers
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It played a key role in the creative bookkeeping at the heart of the impeachment process against Brazil President Dilma Rousseff. It spearheaded the debt surge that contributed to the country’s loss of investment grade. Its biggest client has been Petrobras, the scandal-plagued state oil company.
BNDES, the huge development bank owned by the Brazilian government, seems to keep turning up in the state’s deepening crisis, as does its chief, Luciano Coutinho, whose hand has been on the spigot of the subsidized lending that drove the country’s spectacular growth in its go-go years.