Despite A History Of Bribery And Corruption, JBS, The World's Largest Meat Packager, Prepares To Go Public

Forbes

14-05-2025

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
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, JBS is looking to offer shares on the New York Stock Exchange in June, pending a shareholder vote later this month.
'This time it looks like it's for real,' says Carlos Laboy, a managing director who heads up Latin American food coverage including JBS at HSBC, which is not involved in the listing.
Over the past two decades, the Batista brothers have turned their family's South American meat business into a goliath with more than $77 billion in annual revenue with a presence in nearly every country in the world. Its major U.S. brands include Swift, Pilgrim's Pride, Primo, Blue Ribbon and Certified Agnus Beef. But given the mountain of scandals, U.S. politicians from both sides of the aisle have long been opposed to the company going public in America. Just last year, at 15 senators—including Republicans Josh Hawley of Missouri and John Barrasso of Wyoming as well as Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts—denounced a potential IPO. For years, former Florida Senator Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, was one of JBS' loudest critics. In 2019 Rubio requested an investigation by a Treasury Department committee into JBS's acquisitions, and in 2021, he renewed the ask and broadened it to the approximately 250 meat and agribusiness companies owned by the Batista family's holding company J&F Investimentos. The Treasury Department declined to comment.
'It probably behooves the U.S. authorities to have JBS listed on the New York Stock Exchange because it increases the regulatory oversight.'
But the Batistas' fortune changed when Donald Trump retuned to the White House in January. The long-delayed SEC approval for JBS' dual-listing came just two days after it was revealed in a public filing with the federal election commission that the largest donor to the Trump Inaugural Committee was the JBS subsidiary, chicken processor Pilgrim's Pride. The $5 million donation to Trump's Inauguration was five times larger than the checks given by Amazon, Meta, Uber, Nvidia and Microsoft, which each gave $1 million.
A JBS spokesperson denied any link in the timing of the donation: 'No company has control over the timing of when inaugural committee donation contributions are publicized, and the JBS listing has been underway for approximately two years. The company has internal controls and compliance procedures in place to ensure that all political contributions are made in a transparent and ethical manner, and in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations.'
The spokesperson also declined to provide the names of executives at the Inauguration, only confirming 'several executives attended inaugural events.' The representative declined to comment on whether JBS, Pilgrim's Pride or any affiliates donated to the Trump Administration's transition fund from last summer.
In addition to the SEC approval, there have been other federal policy changes in President Trump's first 100 days that have benefited JBS and the Batistas—most notably, the administration's decision to stop enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
That law, which dates back to 1977, prohibits U.S. companies (including subsidiaries owned by foreign companies), citizens, as well as foreigners acting in the U.S., from bribing officials in the U.S. or abroad. It had previously led to JBS parent company J&F Investimentos paying a $128 million criminal fine as part of a 2020 settlement with the Department of Justice in which J&F pleaded guilty to corruption charges. J&F also paid nearly $27 million over foreign corruption charges with the SEC in 2020. At the same time, the Batistas, who are Brazilian citizens, settled a civil penalty with the SEC and paid $550,000 each. JBS' spokesperson says that the Trump Administration's decision 'didn't change any of the obligations contained in J&F's settlement, which have been fully complied with.'
In terms of linking the SEC's change of heart about JBS' listing to donations to Trump's inaugural, it's difficult to prove a quid pro quo in court, says Brett Kappel, a campaign finance and government ethics attorney at the Washington, D.C. law firm Harmon Curran, and it's unlikely a prosecutor would even take the case.
'If there were a prosecution, the Justice Department would have to show that there was an agreement that government officials would do certain things in exchange for the contribution,' Kappel says. Although he adds, 'the Justice Department could show through circumstantial evidence that the two things were linked. In our judicial system we trust juries to use their common sense to make those decisions."
JBS denies any quid pro quo. 'As a U.S.-based food company, Pilgrim's Pride was pleased to support the 2025 inauguration ceremony,' the spokesperson says. 'We have a long bipartisan history of participating in the civic process and look forward to working with the Administration to create opportunities for American farmers and provide safe, affordable food for American families.'
JBS was founded in 1953 when then-19-year-old Jose Batista Sobrinho, the namesake of the company, began carving up oxen and selling the meat to locals around the family's small farm in Anapolis, a rural region in Central Brazil. Joesley and Wesley were born into the family business as Brazilian beef started booming in the 1970s.
The brothers dropped out of high school to work full-time for JBS, by then a major Brazilian meatpacker, which was then run by Jose Batista, their eldest brother. But in 2005, Jose left JBS for an ill-fated attempt at politics and Joesley and Wesley, then in their thirties, took over.
They took JBS public at a valuation equivalent to $800 million on Brazil's São Paolo-based B3 stock exchange in 2007, which was at the time the most successful debut in the history of its stock market. Soon after going public, the Batistas looked to supersize their business by taking JBS abroad.
The Batistas, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission cease-and-desist order from 2020, were willing to buy their way in. According to his testimony to Brazilian investigators in 2017, Joesley had a network of government officials and politicians on his payroll, including a finance minister at the Brazilian development bank BNDES, who received kickbacks for helping finance acquisitions of American assets, including Pilgrim's Pride. (BNDES, which also became JBS' second-largest shareholder, has denied allegations of corruption and bribery, citing an independent investigation at the time that found no evidence. A Brazilian federal court also refused to charge JBS with a crime in connection with the bribery.)
After Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride went bankrupt, in 2009 the Batistas targeted America's second-largest chicken processor, which they viewed as a bargain. For an initial 64% of the company, JBS spent $800 million. The deal had an enterprise value of $2.8 billion with BNDES providing $2 billion in financing. According to the DOJ indictment against J&F, the bribe Joesley Batista deposited into a U.S. bank account for the BNDES finance minister was more than $55 million.
JBS eventually secured an estimated nearly $5 billion in total equity and debt financing from BNDES across several U.S. deals, including Pilgrim's Pride. In all, the Batistas and J&F agreed to more than three dozen incidents of bribery in Brazil, according to their 2017 cooperation agreements with the Brazilian government. The DOJ and SEC found evidence of some $150 million in kickbacks.
According to the SEC's 2020 case against JBS, publicly traded Pilgrim's Pride, which the Batistas eventually amassed an 80% stake in, even became a slush fund for the brothers: 'From 2009 to 2015, unbeknownst to Pilgrim's management, the [Batistas and J&F] carried out the bribery scheme and its funding using, at times, certain JBS operating accounts which contained funds that were commingled with funds obtained from Pilgrim's through intercompany transfers, special dividend payments, and other means. Pilgrim's books did not reflect this.'
The scheme came crashing down when Brazilian investigators, in the middle of a sweeping country-wide corruption probe in 2017, had Joesley Batista wear a wire to snare the then-President of Brazil, Michel Temer, who Joesley alleged was on the Batistas' payroll. On the recording, Temer can be heard discussing Joesley giving a bribe to another politician on Temer's behalf. After the recording leaked, the Brazilian real tanked and there were massive street protests in Brazil.
Despite their cooperation, the Batistas didn't avoid jail time—they ended up serving about six months, starting in September 2017. And as these bribes, and other unrelated bribes to meat inspectors in Brazil, were revealed to the public, their attempts to list JBS in the U.S. were delayed.
'There were some rocky years there,' says John Baumgarten, a managing director at Mizuho Group who covers food companies, including JBS. 'They had to take a few steps backwards.'
In addition to the extensive bribery scheme, JBS has also faced allegations of environmental damage, particularly that it knowingly buys cattle that have been raised on ranchland created by deforesting the Amazon. JBS' spokesperson denies that, and says the company is 'deeply committed to zero deforestation in our supply chain and are actively investing in sustainable agricultural practices. We continue to collaborate with our suppliers to promote responsible land use and reduce our shared environmental footprint.'
But representatives of the Parakanã people in Brazil allege that JBS illegally exploited the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory in the rainforest by buying cattle raised on cleared acres.
According to a letter sent to then-SEC chairman Gary Gensler in 2023 asking for the listing to be blocked, which was obtained by Forbes through a Freedom of Information Act request, community leader Wenatoa said 'Our people suffer daily threats from invaders, and JBS is an accomplice in this invasion…We will not be silent as long as our lands, culture and dignity continue to be harmed by irresponsible business practices like this.'
Now that the public listing is approved, it will give JBS access to U.S.-only investors, pensions and stock indices. The share price is expected to take off, with HSBC's Laboy estimating JBS could double in value. That would give JBS 'more resources to solve the environmental issues that need to be solved.'
Overall, Laboy sees the listing as a way to rein in JBS. 'It probably behooves the U.S. authorities to have JBS listed on the New York Stock Exchange because it increases the regulatory oversight,' he says. 'More oversight of the market leader intensifies the regulatory pressure on bad behavior in the broader industry."
Either way, the Batistas are not going anywhere. Once JBS is listed, the family holding companies, J&F and JBS Participações, which owns nearly 50% as the largest shareholder of JBS, will get the chance to convert its common shares to preferred, increasing the Batistas' voting power to as much as 90%. While JBS declined to comment on the Batistas' long-term plans, the move ensures that the family will be involved for years to come.
Because of that family control, Laboy believes that 'strong independent voices on the board of directors' are a must. But, as it stands, the board of directors under the NYSE-listed company will include Joesley and Wesley Batista, who were forced to leave the board when they were arrested in 2017. They had been banned from leadership roles for years but they both returned to management at J&F in 2020 after a Brazilian judge ordered it, and in 2024 they were both reelected to the JBS board.
'A strong board with independent members of unquestionable integrity would be optimal for all shareholders of JBS,' Laboy adds, 'including [the Batistas].'