Brazil. The Brazilian company Braskem reported that it lost 2,492 million reais (about US$1,047 million) last year, mainly due to the devaluation of the real against the dollar in the last months of 2008, since the company depends significantly on the foreign market, both for its sales and for the calculation of its costs.The Invertia.com portal reported that according to the financial balance published by the company to its investors, most of the losses (2,108 million reais -US$885.7 million) were accounted for in the last quarter of 2008, when the dollar rose from about 1.60 to 2.50 reais as a result of the global financial crisis.
However, the firm's liquid revenues fell by only 4%, from 18,788 million reais (about US$7,894.1 million) in 2007 to 17,960 million reais (about US$7,546.2 million) in 2008.
This allowed the company to close the year with a positive operating result (Ebitda) of 2,418 million reais (about 1,015.9 million dollars), although 26 percent lower than in 2007.
