SAO PAULO, March 2 (Reuters) - Cielo SA, Brazil's largest card payment processor, has delayed the date for a scheduled shareholder meeting by about two weeks, in a bid to include the discussion of a reduction in the payout ratio to cut debt.
The Barueri, Brazil-based company will host the annual meeting at its headquarters on April 10 instead of a March 27 original date, according to a securities filing late on Monday.
Cielo wants to include the discussion and approval of a plan to cut the minimum dividend to the equivalent of 30 percent of annual net income from the current 50 percent payout ratio. The company incurred 8 billion reais ($2.76 billion) of debt to win control of 70 percent of a card processing joint venture with Banco do Brasil SA.
The deal, which was valued at about 11.6 billion reais, took place in November and was recently approved by regulators and the central bank.
(Reporting by Guillermo Parra-Bernal; Editing by Diane Craft)