Port of Itajaí Superintendency gathers to welcome new lessee Mada Araújo Asset Management Ltda

On Thursday, October 5th, the Superintendent of the Port of Itajaí, Fábio da Veiga, accompanied by Itajaí’s Deputy Mayor, Marcelo Sodré, along with members of the Port Authority’s Directorate, Ronaldo Camargo Souza (Administration and Finance), Jucelino dos Santos Sora (Engineering), Ricardo Amorim (Logistics Operations), Executive Coordinator of Performance, Development, and Strategic Planning, Camilo Santiago de Souza Neto, and the Coordinator of Port Maintenance and Facilities, Marcello Petrelli, received a visit from representatives of the company Mada Araújo Asset Management Ltda, its new lessee, at the Port Authority’s headquarters.

During a Public Session held at the headquarters of the National Waterway Transportation Agency (ANTAQ) on September 13th, the company Mada Araújo Asset Management Ltda ranked second in the competitive proposal classification stage, offering a significant throughput capacity of 44,000 TEUs. The leased area covers 79,946.42 square meters and includes berths 1 and 2, also known as “Area A.”

On October 2nd, the National Waterway Transportation Agency (ANTAQ), through its Permanent Commission for Port Leasing Bids (CPLA), disqualified the first-place winner of the bidding process, MMS Empreendimentos Logísticas Ltda, in the qualification phase. According to the program, the second-ranked company in the classification still needs to go through an evaluation, where it must prove its capacity to handle the terminal.

The company Mada Araújo Asset Management Ltda, as the second-placed bidder in the process, had until Friday, October 6th, to present all its qualification documents at ANTAQ’s headquarters to become the new lessee at the Port of Itajaí. The same procedure applies to the first proponent. If it is also not eligible, the contract passes to the third-ranked company, in this case, Teconnave Terminal de Containeres de Navegantes S/A (MME: 35,000 TEUs), and so on.

The visit of the company’s representatives and other guests to the Superintendent’s headquarters was a courtesy, aiming above all to foster a closer relationship between the lessee and the Port Authority.

Representing Mada Araújo Asset Management Ltda were CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Marco Antonio de Araujo. Mada Araújo Asset Management Ltda is an investment management company founded and registered in São Paulo (SP). Their bid was for a quantity of (MME – 44,000 TEUs), the second-highest bid in the process, with the highest handling capacity, known as Minimum Required Handling (MME).

“We have been in the Itajaí region for four years now, and today, we are showing that we are committed to this project. We are currently structuring our group, where we operate internationally and are an Asset Management company. Our investors looked at Itajaí. We are an asset management company with various clients and large investors, especially in the infrastructure sector. The people who will be with us, hired in this process, are recognized figures in the port sector, with TRANSBRASA having 50 years of experience, and BCP, whose company collects over 2 billion a year, as it is also a specialist in the infrastructure sector. The most important thing is to give Itajaí the prominence it deserves through its port, transforming Itajaí not only into what it already had prominence in but also extending its reach, creating conditions because our project is not for two years, it’s for 40 years.”

“We are doing it unilaterally, very carefully and discreetly because we know that if our project is not the best, it is the most suitable for the port. We will present to ANTAQ a list of all the equipment we have, which is already purchased. We will prove it with invoices, chassis numbers, and all the equipment we have bought to be installed here at the port. We also have an active investment of $700 million lined up for the region, guaranteed by our investor banks. I firmly believe that we are ready, and everything presented here to the Superintendent’s board is also to demystify the lack of knowledge about our group and consequently provide reassurance to the community so that everyone can be sure that we are not here to become a port operator or win a concession. We are here to make a positive mark on the Port of Itajaí,” emphasized Marco Antonio de Araujo, CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Mada Araújo Asset Management Ltda.

The contract stipulates that the winning company will operate at the port for 24 months (two years), a period that may be extended under conditions specified in the Tender Notice at the discretion of the Federal Entity.

According to ANTAQ’s website, the publication of the Legal Drafts regarding the analysis of the qualification documents of the winning proponent will be released on October 17th.

The chart below compares container exports and imports at the Port of Itajaí from January 2019 and December 2022, the period in which container operations began to dwindle at the port. The data is from DataLiner.

Container exports and imports | Port of Itajaí | Jan 2019 – Dec 2022 | TEU

Source: DataLiner (click here to request a demo)

After this period, if there are no requests for appeals from other companies that participated in the bidding process, the following steps will lead to the approval of the simplified procedure’s result, the granting right, and finally, the call for the winning company to enter into a transition contract with the Union, through the Ministry of Ports and Airports, the National Waterway Transportation Agency (Antaq), and the Port Authority of Itajaí (Port Authority). All documents and drafts related to the process are available on the Selective Process page on ANTAQ’s website.

Source: No Ponto SC

To read the original news report, please check: https://www.nopontosc.com.br/itajai/diretoria-da-superintendencia-do-porto-de-itajai-recebe-a-visita-de-representantes-da-mada-araujo-asset-management-ltda/

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