In her column at UOL Economia, journalist Mariana Barbosa detailed on Friday (28) the corporate and financial ties between Banco Master and Oncoclínicas, Brazil's largest private cancer treatment network. According to the column, Oncoclínicas entered Master's portfolio in 2024, when the bank bought shares in the company through a capital increase. The relationship ran both ways: while the bank became a shareholder in the health network, the company parked part of its cash in securities issued by the bank itself.
On the corporate side, the Oncoclínicas shares linked to Master sit under the Tessália and Quíron private equity funds (FIPs, in the Brazilian acronym), according to Economic News Brasil. On the financial side, the exposure is heavier. The company held R$ 478.2 million (about US$ 90 million) in CDBs, Brazilian bank-issued deposit certificates, from Master, according to its third-quarter 2025 balance sheet reported by NeoFeed. Cash from the clinic network was funding the bank that, at the same time, held the company's shares.
The deal and the liquidation
As Master slid into a liquidity crisis, struggling to raise funds after offering above-market rates, Oncoclínicas renegotiated the securities. The agreement, confirmed on October 22, 2025, scheduled the redemption of the roughly R$ 478 million in 20 monthly installments of R$ 20 million to R$ 25 million each, running until May 2027 with the original yield preserved, according to Economic News Brasil. The deal also allowed the company to buy back the Tessália and Quíron fund quotas once the FIPs were cleared for trading.
The arrangement did not hold. On November 18, 2025, Brazil's Central Bank ordered the extrajudicial liquidation, an out-of-court wind-down, of the financial group controlled by Daniel Vorcaro. In its third-quarter results, Oncoclínicas had already set aside R$ 217 million for potential losses on the CDBs. According to NeoFeed, the liquidation triggered the contract between the parties and authorized the company to enforce the guarantees attached to the securities: Vorcaro's own shares in Oncoclínicas.
The market charged a high price for the proximity. Oncoclínicas shares (traded as ONCO3 on the B3 exchange) fell from about R$ 13 at the end of 2023 to near R$ 2 in October 2025, a slide Economic News Brasil attributes to investor concern over the Master exposure. On the bank's side, the FGC, Brazil's private deposit guarantee fund, had released R$ 4 billion to keep operations afloat, but the Central Bank blocked the Banco de Brasília (BRB) from joining as a shareholder, and the institution was wound down.
For the company and its shareholders, what is at stake now is the enforcement of the guarantees and the pace of recovery of the nearly R$ 500 million, plus the reshaping of the shareholder base if the fund quotas are repurchased. For patients and health insurers that rely on the network, the clinics keep operating, but the company's investment capacity depends on how much of that money it can recover, and at what cost.