Brazil's Copersucar CEO to step down
By Marcelo Teixeira
SAO PAULO, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Paulo Roberto de Souza, chief executive of Brazil's Copersucar SA, one of the world's largest sugar and ethanol companies, is stepping down, the company said on Friday.
Copersucar, a partner of Cargill Inc in the world's largest sugar trader Alvean, said Souza was leaving due to personal reasons and that João Roberto Teixeira, who led Brazilian bank Votorantim for several years, will be the new CEO starting on Monday.
Souza led Copersucar for nine years and was a key person behind the deal with Cargill in 2014 to create Alvean, a company controlling one third of the global sugar export market.
Copersucar said Souza will continue to take part on the boards of some ventures, including Alvean, which also had a major management change in September when its head of operations, Soren Jensen, left the firm.
Copersucar is in charge of selling sugar and ethanol produced by 35 associated mills in Brazil. It sold 4.5 million tonnes of sugar and 4.3 billion liters of ethanol in the 2017/18 crop year, with net revenue of 28.6 billion reais ($7.40 billion).
The company also owns 100 percent of U.S.-based fuel distributor and ethanol trader Eco-Energy.
($1 = 3.8662 reais) (Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira Editing by Tom Brown)
