Editor’s note: This article was first published in September 2014. This news piece dates from when the charges had just been filed and a judge still had to accept them. Batista’s situation changed afterwards, and he was arrested in 2017 in a separate corruption investigation. The OGX bankruptcy and the 645 million dollars of frozen assets are 2013-2014 facts.
Brazil’s richest man, Eike Batista, always aimed to become the richest man in the world. In fact, in 2012 he warned Carlos Slim in a statement that he would take his place as the richest man on the Forbes list.
But in business, things don’t always go to plan, and sometimes they even turn drastically against a person.
According to the New York Times, prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro are investigating Eike Batista for possible influence peddling, insider trading and manipulation of the share price of his main oil and gas company, OGX.
Charges have already been filed, and now a judge must decide whether to accept or reject them. If he is found guilty of these charges, Batista could face 13 years in prison, although the same paper reports that in Brazil, judges never convict white-collar criminals.
OGX was the largest corporate bankruptcy in Latin American history.
When OGX found itself at the centre of the storm, Batista said he would use his 34 billion dollar personal fortune to buy shares if the relevant bodies asked him to. With that statement, he not only stopped the fall in the share price but also sent the shares back up.
When management tried to exercise that option, Batista refused, so prosecutors believe he never intended to keep his promise and buy shares in his own company, and that it was a deliberate act of share manipulation.
In addition, prosecutors now allegedly found that Batista sold OGX shares when he learned of the problems that would later bring the share price crashing down. That is insider trading: making a decision to buy or sell shares on the basis of information that the rest of the investors do not have.
So far, only about 645 million dollars of Batista’s assets have been frozen.
Batista is turning all his luxury possessions into cash. He has already sold his prized Lamborghini, his helicopter, three planes, a hotel and a yacht.
Things don’t look good for this man, who was once a role model for the financial media.
See also: The fascinating life and career of billionaire Mark Cuban
Featured image: 5 Vezes Favela, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.
