Connecting Capital with Brazil's Agribusiness Sector: Insights from Opea

Over the summer, OPEA Securitizadora S.A. (Opea) issued its inaugural green CRA ("Certificado de Recebíveis do Agronegócio" or "Agribusiness Receivables Certificate"), displayed on the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX). The transaction forms part of the Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF) Cerrado programme, which supports responsible soy production in Brazil.

We spoke with Flavia Palacios, CEO of Opea, about the significance of this admission, the role of securitisation in connecting Brazilian agricultural producers with global investors and the outlook for Brazilian sustainable finance.

What attracted Opea to Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, and what does this admission mean for your international growth ambitions?

Luxembourg is where global sustainable finance is priced and scrutinised. LGX was the world's first platform dedicated exclusively to sustainable securities and remains the leading one, with over €1.3 trillion raised, 340+ issuers, 60+ countries and 40+ currencies. Its disclosure standards are among the most demanding in the market, and meeting them is itself a statement about quality.

With this admission, Opea becomes the first and today the only Brazilian securitisation company with assets listed in Luxembourg. Brazil has real climate assets and mature capital markets, but the two have rarely been visible to European allocators in a format they recognise. Our ambition is to make that bridge permanent, and to be established in those conversations before the next cycle of allocation to Brazil opens.

For readers and investors unfamiliar with the Brazilian market, how would you explain a CRA and the role it plays in financing Brazil's agribusiness sector?

A CRA, or "Certificado de Recebíveis do Agronegócio", is a Brazilian fixed-income security backed by agricultural credit rights, close in substance to an asset-backed note. Receivables from farmers or agribusiness companies are acquired by a securitisation company, segregated and refinanced through certificates placed with investors.

Its legal architecture is what sets it apart. Each transaction sits in a "patrimônio separado", a statutorily segregated estate isolating the assets from the issuer's balance sheet and from other transactions, and that is the foundation of investor protection. As subsidised rural credit has not kept pace with the sector's growth, CRAs have become one of the principal funding channels for Brazilian agriculture.

Opea has become one of the leading securitisation platforms in Brazil. Why is securitisation an effective bridge between Brazilian agricultural producers and international investors?

Because it resolves a mismatch. Thousands of producers have genuine credit quality but no rating and no international access, while global investors have mandates that cannot underwrite farm-level credit one by one.

Securitisation aggregates a diversified pool into an instrument of institutional size, structures it through legal segregation, collateral and subordination so that risk is allocated deliberately, and translates it into a security carrying the reporting and governance international allocators require.

The asset's currency profile reinforces that alignment. As one of the world's largest agricultural exporters, Brazil originates receivables ultimately serviced by commodities priced and settled in dollars, so a meaningful share of the credit is denominated in or indexed to the currency of the international investor. That correlation mitigates exchange-rate risk, historically one of the principal deterrents to foreign allocation to Brazilian credit.

Opea is not a passive vehicle in that process. We structure the instrument, manage the fiduciary routine over its life, and organise the flow of information back to investors.

This transaction forms part of the Responsible Commodities Facility (RCF) Cerrado programme. What makes the programme distinctive and how does it support agricultural producers?

The RCF makes environmental performance the condition of access to capital and pays for it in the currency farmers care about, which is the cost and tenor of credit. Producers meeting the deforestation and conversion-free criteria receive working capital below market rates, aligned to the crop cycle. The premium paid for verified supply reaches the producer directly, so expansion happens on land already cleared, abundant in the Cerrado, rather than on native vegetation.

The programme is managed by Sustainable Investment Management (SIM), which created the facility and leads origination and environmental verification, while Opea structures and issues the CRAs and manages the fiduciary routine in Brazil. That partnership is what allows an impact mandate designed in London to reach the Cerrado through a rated, regulated Brazilian instrument. The current round raised approximately US$60 million for the 2025/26 season, financing around 280 farms.

The programme finances deforestation- and conversion-free soy production in the Cerrado biome. What environmental requirements must participating farms meet and how is compliance monitored?

A participating farm must show no deforestation or conversion of native vegetation since 1 January 2020, full compliance with the Brazilian Forest Code including valid CAR registration, clear land title and no environmental, labour or agrochemical infractions. Screening precedes any disbursement.

Eligibility also requires a present-day surplus: the farm must hold native vegetation above the minimum the Forest Code requires of it. That surplus is legally clearable land the farmer contractually commits not to convert, and protecting it is what makes the conservation additional rather than a restatement of an existing legal obligation.

Monitoring is continuous and independent, and that is where credibility rests. Farm boundaries are tracked through satellite imagery and geospatial analysis against CAR polygons and official databases, with independent verification after each crop cycle. Results are reported quantitatively and allocated pro rata to investors. This round should conserve some 90,000 hectares of native vegetation, around 29,000 beyond legal requirement, protecting roughly 22 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent.

Looking ahead, how do you see international demand for CRA products and other Brazilian sustainable finance instruments evolving?

Three forces are converging. Regulation first: the European Union's deforestation-free rules turn verified supply chains into a condition of market access, moving instruments that finance verified production from niche allocation into operational requirement. Then the asset itself. Brazil is at once one of the world's largest agricultural producers, one of its largest holders of natural capital, and a market able to package both into rated, transferable securities. And finally, the cycle. High domestic rates have kept Brazilian capital anchored in sovereign paper, and that will not persist. When the domestic market reopens, issuers with established international distribution will move first, and investors who built exposure early will have taken position at the better point.

The market will professionalise as much as it expands, differentiating verified impact from labelled impact. Opea intends to lead that segment.