Petrobras: conformidade contábil e o ambiente macroeconômico e político

Abstract

This research aims to analyze Petrobras' accounting compliance in the post-IFRS period evaluating how the firm's disclosure relates to its performance and to the political and macroeconomic events. Petrobras reflects the combination of two sometimes conflicting concepts represented by its role as a public policy instrument and its role as a multinational Brazilian corporation listed on stock exchanges. The study follows both quantitative and qualitative approaches, starting with the company's history investigation followed by an analysis of the main political and macroeconomic aspects that mark its trajectory which is, finally, confronted with the accounting compliance results, calculated according to the Hodgdon Index. The analysis shows the studied period was very troubling to the company. In the 2010s, Petrobras went through turbulent moments due to a series of events, including high levels of debt to finance the Pré-Sal as well as equity and reputation losses due to the investigations under the Lava Jato Operation. The Brazilian economy also went under probations in the same period, suffering from GDP losses and inflation. Therefore, the company went through both operational and political challenges, inherent to its double role as a corporation and a public policy instrument. While both the company and the Brazilian GDP performance suffered strong seatbacks in the period, the level of accounting compliance presented an upward trend. The disclosure lowest moment was in 2010, the first year of full IFRS adoption, but it only increased in the following years, reaching 73% in 2018. A detailed analysis of the disclosure groups, however, shows a relationship between the low levels for some groups and the events that affected the company in the period. For instance, the low level of disclosure of the Accounting Practices Description related to the Property, Plant and Equipment, Impairment, Inventories, and Contingent Liabilities reflect the period in which amounts arising from overpayment schemes were inappropriately registered as part of the firm's assets. A similar case occurs with the disclosure level of the Non-Current Assets held for Sale group given the company disinvestment practices. On the other hand, after such events, the company's level of disclosure increases due to the increased details the company must give to its investors, leading to the upward trend of the compliance index. In general, the main contribution of the research lies in exploring the relationship between Petrobras' accounting compliance and its performance against the background of different macroeconomic scenarios and the strategic and political contexts. Such understanding is important to the Accounting literature as well as to the investors, especially the minority ones, seeking to clarify the consequences of the public policy role of a firm on its objective to generate wealth to its stockholders.