Analyze Governance and Risk from Brazil FRE Filings

The problem

FRE documents are large (often 70+ individual files per year in the CVM filing bundle) and structured for regulatory compliance, not for API consumption. Key governance data is spread across sections with Portuguese headers:

• Board composition and independence
• Related-party transactions affecting minority shareholders
• Executive compensation structure (fixed, variable, equity)
• Shareholder agreements and control blocks
• Risk factors and material legal proceedings

Downloading FRE manually from the CVM portal for each company in a portfolio does not scale. Bulk open-data dumps lack a per-company, per-year workflow. You need: ticker → FRE list → text extraction → governance Q&A with source pages.

Background: what FRE covers

FRE is Brazil's equivalent of a comprehensive annual reference filing. CVM requires listed companies to update it regularly. Typical governance-relevant sections include:

Production governance workflows on Hold run these checks repeatedly across issuers like Vale, Raia Drogasil, and Três Tentos — always sourcing answers from FRE text.

How apicvm helps

Resolve ticker → List FRE by year → Pick document bundle → Extract markdown → Query governance sections

Step 1: Resolve the company

export APICVM_KEY='apicvm_...'
export APICVM_URL='https://apicvm.dev'

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $APICVM_KEY" \
  "$APICVM_URL/v1/companies/resolve?query=TTEN3&by=ticker"

Step 2: List FRE filings

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $APICVM_KEY" \
  "$APICVM_URL/v1/documents?ticker=TTEN3&type=FRE&year=2025&perPage=50"

FRE often returns many files per year — individual sections filed separately. Filter by name to find the sections you need, or extract the full bundle and search across pages.

Step 3: Extract and query

import os, requests

BASE = os.environ["APICVM_URL"]
H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['APICVM_KEY']}"}

fre_docs = requests.get(
    f"{BASE}/v1/documents",
    params={"ticker": "TTEN3", "type": "FRE", "year": 2025, "perPage": 50},
    headers=H,
).json()

# Pick relevant document IDs for governance sections
for doc in fre_docs["data"][:3]:
    requests.post(
        f"{BASE}/v1/document-text-extractions",
        json={"documentId": doc["id"], "callbackUrl": "https://your-server.example/callback"},
        headers=H,
    )

Governance questions to automate

Structure your agent or search index around recurring governance themes:

1. Board independence — How many independent directors? Which committees do they sit on?
2. Related-party transactions — Any material transactions with controllers or affiliates?
3. Executive compensation — How are bonuses and stock options tied to performance metrics?
4. Shareholder structure — Who controls the company? Are there shareholder agreements limiting change of control?
5. Risk factors — What operational, regulatory, or commodity risks does management highlight?

Cross-reference FRE governance findings with DFP audit opinions (auditor remarks, fiscal council reports) for a fuller picture of financial reporting quality.

Example workflow: ownership and control

A common first pass on any new Brazilian ticker:

# 1. Resolve
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $APICVM_KEY" \
  "$APICVM_URL/v1/companies/resolve?query=RADL3&by=ticker"

# 2. List latest FRE
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $APICVM_KEY" \
  "$APICVM_URL/v1/documents?ticker=RADL3&type=FRE&year=2025&perPage=50"

# 3. Extract text from shareholder-position and board-composition sections
# 4. Ask: control group %, free float %, board independence ratio

Current limitations

• Section-level IDs vary — FRE is filed as multiple documents; you must map section names to document IDs or search across all extracted pages.
• No governance schema — apicvm delivers text, not parsed fields like "independent_directors_count".
• Update frequency — FRE is updated periodically, not quarterly like ITR; check dateRef on list results.
• Corpus coverage — availability depends on ingestion; verify documents exist for your target ticker and year.

Next steps

• Read the API docs
• Get an API key
• Learn what FRE is
• Explore legal contingencies and ESG in FRE

Related guides

• What is FRE — Formulário de Referência
• FRE filing type overview
• Extract financial footnotes from DFP