By Tatiana Bautzer and Guillermo Parra-Bernal
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's most prominent banking clans could pay between 3.3 billion reais and 3.5 billion reais ($1 billion and $1.1 billion) for a majority stake in Havaianas flip flop maker Alpargatas SA, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
Proceeds from a sale of Alpargatas, whose shares are up sharply this year, could help pay down the heavy debt load of the owners, who are also involved in a corruption scandal.
Cambuhy Investimentos Ltda and Itaúsa Investimentos SA (ITSA4.SA) are working to iron out terms of a deal by as early as next week, when exclusivity talks expire with Alpargatas' controlling shareholder J&F Investimentos SA, the first person said.
Itaúsa oversees the fortune of Brazil's Villela and Setubal families, who control São Paulo-based Itaú Unibanco Holding SA (ITUB4.SA), Latin America's largest bank by assets. Cambuhy is the family office of Brazil's billionaire Moreira Salles family, also a major Itaú shareholder.
J&F, which owns 86 percent of Alpargatas and oversees the fortune of the billionaire Batista family, must raise cash to pay a 10.3 billion real leniency fine and refinance looming loan maturities, the people said. J&F's owners Joesley and Wesley Batista signed a leniency deal in May after admitting to bribing almost 1,900 politicians.
Common shares of São Paulo-based Alpargatas (ALPA3.SA) are up 63 percent this year. The company's Havaianas flip flops, created in 1962 during Brazil's Bossa-Nova musical movement, are worn globally by celebrities from Blake Lively to Jennifer Aniston.
Alpargatas, which also manages a wide array of Brazilian fashion brands including beachwear brand Osklen, is the first of J&F's assets lined up for sale in the wake of the Batista family's involvement in Brazil's worst-ever corruption scandal. Reuters reported the Cambuhy-led bid on June 16, which the companies confirmed a week later.
Proceeds from sale of J&F's stake in Alpargatas will go to repay a 2.7 billion-real acquisition financing loan the Batistas took with state-controlled lender Caixa Econômica Federal, the first person said. The loan is under investigation by Brazil's audit court TCU for potential irregularities.
J&F, Cambuhy and Itaúsa declined to comment. The people asked not to be identified because talks remain private.
PRESSURE FROM CREDITORS
The pace of talks between J&F and the Cambuhy-Itaúsa group gained steam in recent days. Creditors have been pressuring the Batistas to renegotiate more than 30 billion reais of debt at J&F and JBS SA (JBSS3.SA), the world's No. 1 meatpacker, which the brothers also control.