SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian conglomerate Cosan is not looking to sell its stake in miner Vale in the short term, Chairman Rubens Ometto was quoted as saying in an interview published on Wednesday.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
Cosan is a Brazilian commodity giant and owns a stake of just over 4% in Vale, making it an important shareholder in one of the world's largest iron ore miners, which has a dispersed ownership.
A Bloomberg News report last month indicated Cosan was considering a sale of assets including its $2.2 billion stake in Vale.
KEY QUOTES
"We are long-term investors and are happy (with it). We are not interested in flipping the shares in the short term," Ometto said in an interview with newspaper Valor Economico.
He noted, however, that Cosan was studying alternatives to reduce its debt load.
ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND
Cosan controls logistics firm Rumo, lubricants company Moove, natural gas firm Compass and shares control of Raizen with Shell (LON:RDSa).
It first purchased a 4.9% stake in Vale in late 2022 but has since sold some 33 million shares, reducing the stake to 4.1% in a move it said was "aimed at optimizing its capital structure," with no change to its long-term Vale investment.
Vale recently swapped CEOs, with former finance head Gustavo Pimenta replacing Eduardo Bartolomeo. Ometto praised Pimenta as "someone who knows the miner well" and would "correct what needs to be done," according to Valor. (This story has been corrected to clarify that Ometto is Cosan's chairman, not CEO, in the headline and in paragraph 1)