Behind the scenes of how Rioprevidência invested R$ 970 million in Banco Master bonds.

Reflecting the crisis caused by billions of dollars invested in Banco Master, the pension fund for civil servants in the state of Rio de Janeiro has been without a formal head of investment for over a month. The management vacuum arose after Pedro Leal was dismissed from his position, along with nine other civil servants, for authorizing and maintaining Rioprevidência's investments in the financial institution, which has been under extrajudicial liquidation since November .

R$970 million was invested in the bank's financial instruments , in addition to R$1.5 billion invested in funds managed by the Master conglomerate. NeoFeed gained access, through the Access to Information Law, to minutes of internal meetings, investment reports, and documents from the Court of Auditors of the State of Rio de Janeiro (TCE-RJ) that outline how RioPrevidência decided to invest in Banco Master's assets.

Master's first purchases of financial instruments occurred shortly after Euchério Lerner Rodrigues was appointed by Governor Cláudio Castro to the investment directorate of Rioprevidência, in October 2023. All investments in the bank's securities were made under his management, according to data obtained through the Access to Information Law.

Euchério Rodrigues, former chief of staff to the president of the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) and former finance superintendent of Dataprev, was dismissed from his position in March of last year, already under investigation by the TCE-RJ (Rio de Janeiro State Court of Auditors). Documents obtained by NeoFeed show that Euchério Rodrigues' name was viewed with suspicion even before he took office. The first questions arose from the advisor to the State Attorney General's Office (PGE), Felipe Derbli.

Present at the extraordinary meeting of the Board of Directors of Rioprevidência that analyzed the nomination of Euchério Lerner Rodrigues, Derbli raised, immediately after the candidate's presentation, "possible incompatibilities that could hinder the candidate's performance at Rioprevidência," according to the minutes of the meeting obtained by NeoFeed .

Next, Rodrigo Moreira Alves, a member of the Rio de Janeiro State Court of Justice, pointed out that the nominee's experience, as he had never worked as an investment manager, could be "too administrative and academic" for the position, as recorded in the meeting minutes. However, there were no objections to his nomination.

One of the first changes implemented by Euchério Lerner Rodrigues shortly after taking office was the expansion of the permitted limit for allocation to financial instruments. Less than a month later, on November 1st and 10th, 2023, Rioprevidência made its first investments in Master financial instruments, totaling R$ 80 million.

Although increasing the allocation limit for financial bills was discussed in that month's Investment Committee, there was no record in the minutes of any discussion about the specific investment in the bank's securities. Until then, Rioprevidência had no direct exposure to financial bills reported in its monthly investment reports.

Investments continued in the following months, with another R$ 200 million invested in December 2023 and R$ 230 million in February 2024. Between April and July of that year, the fund made five new investments in Master financial instruments totaling R$ 340 million.

In total, Rioprevidência's direct exposure to financial instruments issued by Banco Master reached R$ 970 million, considering the contributions made between November 2023 and July 2024. In the Military Social Protection Fund, these instruments represented approximately 50% of the allocations, according to records presented at the Investment Committee meetings.

Investments come to light.

The interruption of contributions coincided with the publication of the first reports about Rioprevidência's purchases of financial instruments from Banco Master. Also in October of that year, the newspaper O Globo reported on investments made by the fund, bringing the issue to the forefront.

Euchério Rodrigues had to spend more than two hours with the Investment Committee that month to explain the rationale behind the investment in Master. At the meeting, Euchério Lerner Rodrigues admitted that he had been “receiving questions from various bodies regarding the financial instruments in Banco Master.” Even so, he defended that “the investment is good and is yielding an excellent return,” as recorded in the minutes.

For the first time, Rodrigues and his alternate, Pedro Pinheiro Guerra Leal, stated that, prior to the application, due diligence and balance sheet analysis of the institution were carried out, highlighting that the only step not performed internally by Rioprevidência was the rating assessment.

The Investment Director also stated that the instruments offered by other institutions did not present such an attractive return and that, from the moment Banco Master became part of the list of options being evaluated, "there was nothing left to think about."

According to the minutes of that meeting, it was the "competition that fed the press this data" about the investments. The document, however, does not specify who made the accusations or what type of "competition" was being referred to.

At that time, even in the face of growing market distrust regarding Banco Master's solvency, Rodrigues stated that there were offers to buy the financial instruments and that it would be possible to sell them at a profit, but that this alternative "was not recommended at the moment."

One of the arguments presented by Rodrigues to maintain the investment was the existence of collateral tied to the payroll loan agreements signed between Rioprevidência and Banco Master. According to him, in case of default on the financial instruments, the amounts could be offset with funds from the payroll loans, which, in the then director's assessment, would mitigate the risk of the operation.

Unlike Certificates of Deposit (CDBs) for individuals, these securities are not guaranteed by the Credit Guarantee Fund, and, with Master in liquidation, they move to the queue of creditors. The amount to be recovered depends on how much the bank manages to raise from the sale of assets, the order of priority of creditors, and the collateral attached to the payroll loan contracts.

Directors leave, crisis remains.

In early December, after Pedro Leal's dismissal, Rioprevidência obtained a favorable ruling from the Rio de Janeiro State Court of Justice (TJ-RJ) authorizing the withholding of funds linked to payroll loan contracts signed with Banco Master, up to a limit of R$ 970 million, plus interest and inflation adjustments. With this decision, the funds began to be deposited into an exclusive account, where they will remain held until the final judgment of the case.

The collapse of Banco Master impacted not only the accounts of Rioprevidência (the state's pension fund). The episode also triggered an unprecedented transparency crisis in the management of the state's own pension system for civil servants.

No minutes from the meetings of the Board of Directors of Rioprevidência were published on the institution's official website throughout 2025. The RPPS (Regime Próprio de Previdência Social - Public Pension System) also stopped publishing the minutes of the Investment Committee after the August meeting, and the last available monthly investment report is from October of last year, further exacerbating the information blackout precisely at a time of heightened scrutiny regarding the management of pension resources.

Even with recommendations from the Public Prosecutor's Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro to recover any losses resulting from the liquidation of Master, at least until the beginning of December, RioPrevidência still held R$ 890 million in Master financial instruments in its portfolio, according to data obtained through the Access to Information Law.

In October 2025, Euchério Lerner Rodrigues and Pedro Leal were notified by the Court of Auditors of the State of Rio de Janeiro (TCE-RJ), which also determined the prohibition of new investments by Rioprevidência in instruments issued, administered or managed by the Banco Master conglomerate.

In addition to evidence of irregularities involving Rioprevidência's direct exposure to Banco Master, the Court of Auditors of the State of Rio de Janeiro pointed out that the RPPS (Regime Próprio de Previdência Social - Public Pension System) made other contributions totaling R$ 1.5 billion to three funds managed by the bank's conglomerate: Revolution, Arena, and Texas.

In the Revolution and Arena funds, both fixed-income funds, investments totaled R$ 1.4 billion. The other R$ 100 million was invested in Texas, an equity fund that at one point had 96% exposure to shares of Ambipar, one of the companies invested in by Banco Master. Since September, the company's shares have fallen by more than 97%.

In addition to Rioprevidência, 18 other state and municipal pension schemes still held Master financial instruments as of early December, according to data obtained through the Access to Information Law.

The Rio de Janeiro State RPPS (Regime Próprio de Previdência Social - Public Pension System) had the largest nominal exposure, followed by the Amapá RPPS, with R$ 400 million, and São Roque, with R$ 93.15 million. In total, the 19 RPPS still held R$ 1.618 billion in Master bonds, all acquired between 2023 and 2024.

NeoFeed contacted Rioprevidência regarding the transactions presented in this report, but received no response. The report also attempted to contact Euchério Rodrigues through various channels, but received no response.