Brazil Police Raid Investment Bank BTG Pactual, Shares Fall Fifteen Percent

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Reuters) Brazil’s federal police on Friday raided the headquarters of Latin America’s largest independent investment bank, Banco BTG Pactual SA, and the addresses of its founder André Esteves, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Maria das Graças Foster, former chief executive of state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, was also a target, the statement said. The raids were related to the sale of stakes in African oilfields to BTG Pactual.

BTG Pactual confirmed in a securities filing its headquarters in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were raided by federal police and said it was operating normally. Shares of BTG Pactual were down over fifteen percent in São Paulo and closed at 56.99 reais.

The bank said it was cooperating with authorities and the raids were related to a plea deal signed by the former minister, Antonio Palocci.

It said an investigation by a special independent committee led by U.S. law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP had already been carried out and no evidence of unlawful conduct was found.

One source close to the bank said previous federal police probes had gotten the same documents they were searching for on Friday.

Prosecutors are investigating whether Petrobras sold stakes in Nigerian oilfields to BTG in 2013 for a value lower than initial assessments by other financial institutions.

“At the beginning of the sale process, the assets were valued between US$5.6 billion and US$8.4 billion. But in the end, BTG Pactual paid US$1.5 billion for a fifty percent stake,” the statement from prosecutors said. It also mentioned potential bribes related to the acquisition of oil rigs.

Last month, BTG Pactual founder André Esteves asked the Central Bank to allow him to take back a key stake in the bank’s controlling partnership after he was acquitted on different corruption charges.

Brazilian BTG Pactual operates in investment banking, wealth management, and asset management. It offers advisory services in mergers and acquisitions, wealth planning, loans, and financings, as well as investment solutions and market analyses. It is the largest investment bank in Latin America and the Caribbean and is also the 5th largest bank in Brazil.

With headquarters in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the clients of the bank – which began as a brokerage firm in 1983 in Rio de Janeiro – are companies, retail and institutional investors, as well as municipal, state, and federal governments.

(Source: Reuters)