By Brazil Stock Guide – Cosan (B3: CSAN3; NYSE: CSAN) will still need to sell at least R$ 9 billion ($1.8 billion) in assets to restore its financial balance, despite securing a R$ 10 billion capital injection from new strategic partners. The assessment was reported by O Globo, underscoring that the company’s deleveraging effort remains unfinished.
The message comes from Renato Mazzola, a partner at BTG Pactual, who has assumed a central role in Cosan’s management following last year’s recapitalisation. According to the report, further asset sales remain necessary to stabilise leverage and reinforce cash generation, even after the equity infusion led by BTG Pactual and Perfin Infra.
In September 2025, Cosan announced a two-step equity transaction priced at R$ 5 per share, bringing in about R$ 10 billion from BTG Pactual and Perfin in the first tranche. The deal reshaped the company’s shareholder base and governance, while allowing founder Rubens Ometto to retain ultimate control through priority rights in the subsequent phase.
At the time, management presented the transaction as a turning point to reduce net debt and ease interest expenses after years of leverage-driven expansion. Yet, as reported by O Globo, the scale of the adjustment required goes beyond equity, reflecting the depth of Cosan’s balance-sheet strain.
No “Sacred Cows”
There are no “sacred cows” left in Cosan’s portfolio, Mazzola told the newspaper. Assets traditionally viewed as strategic — including rail operator Rumo and lubricants business Moove — are now openly discussed as potential divestment candidates if they can accelerate deleveraging.
The shift marks a break from Cosan’s long-standing strategy of accumulating and holding capital-intensive assets across logistics, energy and agribusiness. The current focus is liquidity and balance-sheet resilience, even at the cost of a smaller industrial footprint.
For investors, the sequence is revealing. A massive, discounted equity raise followed by the prospect of additional asset sales signals that Cosan’s restructuring is structural rather than tactical. Discipline is evident, but the scale of remaining disposals highlights how far the company still has to go to fully reset its capital structure after a decade of debt-fuelled growth.
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