BTG's Partners Said to Plan Buying Esteves's Stake After Arrest
- Cristiane Lucchesi
- Nov 29, 2015
- 2 min read
BTG Pactual’s partners are in talks to buy former Chief Executive Officer Andre Esteves’s controlling stake in the bank after his arrest last week, said a person with knowledge of the matter.
The partners are still trying to work out details for the purchase as they try to insulate the bank from Esteves and stem fund withdrawals if he remains in jail, the person said, asking not to be identified because discussions are private. BTG has 64 partners, according to its website.
Esteves has a so-called golden share at BTG that gives him the effective control of the company, the person said.
A BTG Pactual official declined to comment, while Esteves’s lawyer directed questions on the matter to BTG.
Esteves was arrested Nov. 25 on allegations he and Senator Delcidio Amaral tried to interfere with the testimony of a former Petroleo Brasileiro SA executive who was jailed in January in the nation’s biggest corruption scandal. Esteves has denied the accusations through his lawyer. His defense team has petitioned Brazil’s Supreme Court to free the banker Sunday, when the five-day period of his arrest warrant expires, one of the billionaire’s attorneys said.
BTG appointed Persio Arida as interim CEO the same day Esteves was arrested. Still, shares of BTG tumbled 26 percent in Sao Paulo since Nov. 25. Clients took 4.2 billion reais ($1.1 billion) out of some of the bank’s most liquid fixed-income funds on Nov. 25 and Nov. 26, according to the latest data available on the securities regulator’s website. That represents about a third of the combined net assets of the 10 fixed-income funds listed on the bank’s website.
Folha de S.Paulo reported on Saturday that the partners were considering buying Esteves’s stake.
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