Biosev, a Brazilian sugar and ethanol subsidiary of French group Louis Dreyfus Commodities, has become the latest company to postpone a planned initial public offer of shares on the São Paulo stock exchange.

The IPO was set to be priced by midnight local time on Wednesday. But no price materialised and on Thursday, Biosev said it had postponed the sale. “We just didn’t have the book,” a banker told International Financing Review.

Biosev had planned to raise as much as R$1.14bn ($563m) from the sale. But nervousness over the eurozone crisis and slow growth in the US and China turned market conditions against the deal. Here is the company’s statement:

Biosev advises it has opted to postpone its IPO process on July 18th, following the meeting of the Board of Directors held in Sao Paulo. Uncertainties in the financial market were the main reason to postpone the company’s entry in the New Market. According to the Chairman of the Biosev Board, Kenneth Geld, the company had a very good road show in the Brazilian and international markets. “We are confident that once world economic scenario stabilizes, new opportunities will arise to materialize our IPO”.

IFR made this the sixth IPO to be postponed in Brazil so far this year. “Uncertainties” haven’t stopped others getting to market, most notably investment bank BTG Pactual, which raised nearly $2bn in April.

But not everybody can offer the kind of return on equity achieved by BTG. For ordinary mortals, 2012 is proving a tough year on Brazil’s equity market.

The Financial Times