De agroindústria a conglomerado financeiro: uma análise da nova dinâmica do setor sucroenergético a partir do caso do grupo Cosan

Abstract

This work aims to analyze and characterize Cosan group’s performance and its strategies from the 2000s, in face of the recent changes in Brazilian agroindustry, based on the hypothesis that those strategies point to an adjustment of the company to a new competitive environment, as a result of the financialization of the world’s economy. In a further moment, we have analyzed the logic that stands in the contemporary sugar-energy industry based on the phenomenon of financialization, given the privileged position of group in the Brazilian sugarcane activity. This research focus on Cosan’s expansion and diversification strategies, in order to map its performance in several economic activities, as so its interactions with many others that somehow connect themselves to the group’s agro-industrial enterprise. Therefore, this work is structured under three specific goals, that represent each of its three chapters, being i) the reviewed reconstruction of Cosan’s trajectory; ii) the description of the holding Cosan Limited’s genesis, mapping its participations and analyzing its strategies; and iii) the analysis of the contemporary dynamics of sugar-energy agrobusiness based on the dominance of the finance. This study counted on a documental analysis of State’s public documents, official announcements published by the group itself, as journalistic reports and bibliographic review. Were used a historical-deductive and inductive approaches, based on the historical-structural method of analysis. It is concluded that the neoliberal adjustment of the Brazilian State forced the integration of Cosan group into the international financial and capital markets, changing the dynamics of capitalist accumulation in the sugar-energy sector and the appropriation of land income.