Despite A History Of Bribery And Corruption, JBS, The World’s Largest Meat Packager, Prepares To Go Public
The post Despite A History Of Bribery And Corruption, JBS, The World’s Largest Meat Packager, Prepares To Go Public appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
The Brother Lode: Billionaires Joesley (left) and Wesley Batista are the top shareholders of JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, which the SEC recently greenlit to be listed on the NYSE. EVARISTO SA/AFP/Getty Images Joesley and Wesley Batista, the billionaire brothers behind JBS, went to jail after paying off more than 1,800 politicians in their native Brazil and have struggled to launch a public offering in the U.S. But after one of their companies donated $5 million to Donald Trump’s second inaugural, their SEC troubles miraculously disappeared. After a decade-long beef with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as bipartisan opposition in Congress, JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, was finally given the green light in late April to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The U.S. listing of the Brazil-based JBS has been delayed several times over the past decade due to a deluge of scandals involving the top shareholders and their holding company—including bribes to Brazilian meat inspectors, kickbacks to government financiers and illegal campaign contributions to more than 1,800 Brazilian politicians. That is in addition to accusations in the U.S. of JBS and companies it owns price-fixing, wage-manipulating and violating child labor laws, plus allegations of discrimination and harassment. Joesley and Wesley Batista, 53 and 52 respectively, are the company’s largest shareholders through their holding company J&F Investimentos. The brothers, whom Forbes estimates are worth $4.8 billion each, have also been personally charged with foreign corruption in the U.S. as well as insider trading allegations in Brazil (related to the timing of the news of their bribery scheme) that saw them briefly jailed for about six months from 2017 to 2018. Any one of those issues would have ended most other companies’ prospects of going public on the American market, but following the SEC’s recent decision,…
Filed under: News - @ May 14, 2025 10:26 am