Another massive graft probe opens in Brazil
Brazil’s federal police launched an extensive operation yesterday to investigate massive alleged fraud at state-run companies’ pension funds in a probe forcing business leaders such as the chief executive of meat packer JBS and the president of constructor WTorre to step down from their companies.
Police said they were carrying out seven arrest orders and over a hundred search warrants, while freezing assets worth 8 billion reais ($2.5 billion) — including the confiscation of a plane, 139 vehicles and 90 real estate properties. Prosecutors said the scope of the fraud is comparable to the billions of dollars of kickbacks discovered at state-controlled oil firm Petrobras which has led to the imprisonment of a string of high-profile businessmen and politicians, dubbed “Operation Car Wash.”
Yesterday’s fresh probe into Brazil’s elite has been named “Operation Greenfield” and may threaten future economic and political stability in a country that is still reeling from a deep recession as well as the controversial, divisive impeachment of its first female president, Dilma Rousseff, last week.
Wesley Batista, CEO of meat processing giant JBS SA — the world’s biggest producer of beef and chicken — was called in for questioning about an investment in wood pulp producer Eldorado Brasil SA, where he is on the board of directors, according to a representative for J&F Investimentos, the Batista family’s holding company.
Estado de São Paulo reported on its website that the judge overseeing the case ordered 40 individuals under investigation, including Wesley Batista and his brother, J&F CEO Joesley Batista, to step away from any role at their companies. The dismissals were allegedly a leniency offered in place of their arrest.
The company referred requests for comment to J&F, which declined to comment further on the matter. JBS shares fell over 10% on the report, their biggest daily drop in six months.
The sweeping operation was the latest in a string of anti-graft investigations, which have roiled Latin America’s largest economy for more than two years and been a principal catalyst in its political crisis. The pension funds caught up in yesterday’s investigation are those of state-run banks Caixa Economica Federal and Banco do Brasil, Petrobras, and postal service Correios, police said.
Police said the investigation was focused on 10 cases that had caused enormous losses to pensioners, including reckless or fraudulent investments made through connected investment funds.
Brazil’s securities regulator, known as CVM, said in a statement that the probe that led to yesterday’s operation started a year and a half ago. Secrecy on the operation was expected to be lifted last night, CVM said.
At: http://www.buenosairesherald.com.ar/article/221152/another-massive-graft-probe-opens-in-brazil
= new reply since forum marked as read
Wesley Batista sounds like a real greed freak. He's into everything.
Here's the Wikipedia look at his business:
History[edit]
JBS was initially established as a slaughtering business by rancher Jose Batista Sobrinho, a rancher in Anápolis, Brazil, in 1953. (The company's name comes from the founder's initials.) Sobrinho's business began to expand when the establishment of Brazil's capital, Brasilia, brought a new market within reach of his ranch. Over the late 1960s Sobrinho expanded into owning slaughterhouses; then, in the 1980s, the company began expanding within Brazil and purchasing other meat processing companies. JBS became a publicly held company in 2007, and in the same year received a major investment from BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank).[3]
In subsequent years, the company has grown to become the world's largest company in the beef sector with the acquisition of several stores and food companies in Brazil and the world, including the 2007 US$225m acquisition of U.S. firm Swift & Company,[4] which was the third largest U.S. beef and pork processor, renamed as JBS USA. It leads the world in slaughter capacity, at 51.4 thousand head per day, and continues to focus on production operations, processing, and export plants, nationally and internationally.
With the new acquisition, JBS entered the pork market, featuring an impressive performance in this segment, to end the year as the third largest producer and processor of this type of meat in the United States. The acquisition expanded the company's portfolio to include rights to the worldwide use of the Swift brand.
The next year, JBS acquired Smithfield Foods' beef business. It was renamed JBS Packerland.
JBS's production structure is embedded in consumer markets worldwide, with plants installed in the world's four leading beef producing nations (Brazil, Argentina, United States, and Australia), serving 110 countries through exports.
On September 16, 2009, JBS announced that it had acquired the food operation of Grupo Bertin, one of three Brazilian market leaders, consolidating its position as the largest beef producer in the world. The banks JP Morgan Chase and Santander Brasil assisted in the transaction. On the same day it was announced that the company had acquired 64% of Pilgrim's Pride for a bid of $800 million US dollars (www.sec.gov), establishing JBS's position in the chicken production industry, but currently the company owns 75.3% of Pilgrim's Pride.
In August 2010, it was reported that JBS is considering to sell some of the eight slaughterhouses it owned in Argentina because of "scarce livestock and export restrictions".[5]
As of 2011, JBS had been trying to bid to gain control of Sara Lee Corporation's meat business. JBS has shown interest in the meats business but struggled to push forward with a bid for the entire company.[6]
On May 27, 2014, Pilgrim's Pride Corporation, which is 75% owned by JBS SA, made an unsolicited $5.6 billion bid for Hillshire Brands Co. (HSH).[7]
On July 28, 2014, Tyson Foods, Inc. announced its intention to sell Tyson de México and Tyson do Brasil, its Mexican and Brazilian poultry subsidiaries, to JBS SA for $575 million in cash by the end of 2014, pending regulatory approval.[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JBS_S.A.
[center]
Wesley Batista. Hell of a way to make a living.
A drunk lying in a pool of his own vomit is more precious, in my view.[/center]
From 2014:
Brazilian Barons Become Five Slaughterhouse Billionaires
by Blake Schmidt
December 14, 2014 — 11:00 PM CST
Updated on December 15, 2014 — 11:17 AM CST
When Brazilian beef producer JBS SA tried buying U.S.-based National Beef Packing Co. and Smithfield Beef Group Inc. in 2008, it was met with a tide of opposition.
Attorneys general in 13 U.S. states filed suit against the Sao Paulo-based company, alleging the buyout of National Beef, the fourth-largest packer in the U.S., would threaten competitive pricing by creating an oligopoly led by JBS, Tyson Foods Inc. and Cargill Inc. A campaigning Hillary Clinton told the South Dakota daily Rapid City Journal that she opposed the Smithfield takeover and would “fight consolidation.”
The Batista family that controls JBS wasn’t discouraged. It scrapped the National Beef acquisition, completed the Smithfield purchase and turned JBS into a global food empire -- all with the help of state bank support. With trailing 12-month revenue of 110 billion reais ($45 billion), JBS eclipsed Vale SA this year as the biggest company in Brazil after state-owned Petroleos Brasileiros SA. It’s also made five of JBS founder Jose Batista Sobrinho’s six children billionaires.
“They run a tight business,” said Revisson Bonfim, head of emerging market analysis at Sterne Agee & Leach in New York. “They come in where there’s a lot of waste and know how to dig the waste out. Acquisitions have always been in their DNA, but it wasn’t until they moved into the U.S. that it took off.”
More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-15/brazilian-barons-become-five-slaughterhouse-billionaires
