Foreign finance manuals ignore Brazilian business reality

Higher education in finance in Brazil still goes against the grain of the national corporate reality. According to Estadão, finance manuals used in Brazil are translated from English and focus on foreign models.

In academic practice, these manuals cover IPOs, mergers, multinational valuation and New York governance. This is an ecosystem far from the environment faced by the overwhelming majority of local companies.

The shock with the real market usually happens during the students' first professional experience. As Estadão found, students encounter the reality of small businesses, traders negotiating deadlines and cash flow management in internships.

This distortion between imported theory and daily practice harms the training of managers and analysts prepared for the predominant profile of the national economy. Too much focus on global corporations leaves gaps in understanding lean business and day-to-day credit and deadline negotiations.

What changes for the investor

For those who allocate capital and operate on the stock market, the disconnect in academic training affects the quality of fundamental analysis aimed at smaller companies. Misreading balance sheets and local cash management can generate distortions in asset pricing and corporate risk assessment in the domestic market.

Automatically translated from Portuguese.