Eike Batista is a Brazilian businessman, who has founded variety of businesses from oil and energy to construction and mining. Eike Batista’s petroleum exploring company recently had to file for bankruptcy with $5.8 billion in debt, naval construction company was another loss to bankruptcy with $2.4 billion in debt, mining company lost to bankruptcy due to $150 million in debt, and now, the latest victim, Eneva SA (BVMF:ENEV3) (OTCMKTS:ENEVY) an electric company who has debt holdings of $900 million. With Eneva entering bankruptcy with only 78 million reais in cash, the company also had to liquidate a stake in power plant in the utility company EDP Energias do Brasil, which netted them 300 million reais.
Eneva crumbled due to projects being behind schedule
While Eneva was once very successful and the largest private electricity producer in Brasil, the company crumbled due to projects being behind schedule, lack of cash flow, and not enough cash to pay off creditors. However, while founder, Batista may be taking another loss here, it is E.On a German utility company that really will be feeling the pressure from this bankruptcy. E.On had a 10% stake in Eneva, which totaled up to around 850 million reais in 2012. Then in 2013, E.On purchased an additional 24.5% stake from the founder Eike Batista, for a deal totaling 1.4 billion reais. After all is said and done, the founder Eike Batista owns only 20% on Eneva SA (BVMF:ENEV3) (OTCMKTS:ENEVY), while E.On is stuck with 42.9% of the company.
To make matters worse for Batista, he is subject of accusations theories detailing of possible insider trading and stock manipulation. Batista currently faces court in Rio de Janeiro and is scheduled to continue the court hearings on December 17th. Eike Batista’s lawyers, however, are in a fight right now to remove the presiding judge on the case, because of their perceived view that he is “prejudice” and will not be impartial, according to the lawyer team.
Eike Batista facing criminal charges of financial fraud
However, Eike Batista certainly has seen a fall from grace. Brasil’s richest man and once most famous businessman is now facing criminal charges of financial fraud, and the man has watched as five of his once successful businesses have entered bankruptcy. The debt holdings, alone from all of these companies are staggering and certainly makes you rethink what Batista was thinking and how he let his founded companies be ran into the ground. Ultimately, Eike Batista is not the idol and “class A” businessman that everyone thought he was, but now he has to focus on his financial fraud charges before him, before really focusing on Eneva and the other bankruptcy companies.
