The Federal Bank, or Caixa Economica Federal (CEF), took on all the costs of the PPP of the port in exchange for public land and certificates known as Certificates of Additional Construction Potential (CEPACs), which authorize the construction of buildings with stories above city zoning limits. In the case of the Porto Maravilha, the CEPACs doubled the area available for development – vertically. And with that, the profits per square meter would similarly double.
The bank jumpstarted the project with R$3.5 billion. Most of these resources were dedicated to the first five years of the Porto Maravilha initiative (2009 – 2014). The expectation was that the value of the public land and the CEPACs would pay for the rest of the R$8 billion that the Federal Bank committed to the project. But the books did not balance. The corrected cost of the agreement came to R$9.9 billion in 2016.
Commercial interest in the area was lower than anticipated. By 2015, national insurance needed to provide an additional R$1.5 billion to finance the public-private partnership.