SÃO PAULO, Brazil â€" The troubled Brazilian businessman Eike Batista has taken further steps toward dismantling his once high-flying empire of energy, logistics and mining companies.
Mr. Batista announced Thursday night in a filing with the Brazilian securities and exchange commission that he would sell a controlling stake in one of his companies, the LLX logistics firm, for 1.3 billion reais ($560 million). The buyer is EIG Global Energy Partners, a Washington-based energy investment firm that has invested in projects all over the world. Mr. Batista will also give up his management role in the company.
A person briefed on the matter confirmed Thursday that another one of his companies, the petroleum firm OGX, has hired the Blackstone Group as financial advisers.
The move may indicate that OGX, which has over $3 billion in debt trading at under 20 cents on the dollar, is planning either to sell some assets or restructure its debt. OGX is Brazil’s largest private-sector petroleum company, and it owns 33 exploratory blocks in Brazil and Colombia that the company estimates hold over 10 billion barrels of petroleum reserves.
Mr. Batista founded and listed six companies on the São Paulo stock exchange, and for a time he was an international symbol of Brazil’s economic might.
In 2011 he vowed to become the world’s richest man by 2015. His flashy lifestyle extended to his personal life. He married one of the country’s most famous models, had dinner with Madonna, raced speedboats, published an autobiography, loaned his private jet to the Rio de Janeiro state governor, invested in a rock festival, and donated millions to help Rio de Janeiro become the host city for the 2016 Olympics.
Time Magazine chose him in 2012 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
His companies have names that all end in the letter X, which he said stood for the multiplication of wealth that his shareholders could expect.
But all the companies’ shares are now worth only a fraction of their original prices. Weakness in Brazil’s economy and recent mass demonstrations over the nation’s woes have only added to his problems. Mr. Batista has seen his own net worth, once $30 billion, tumble to well under $1 billion.
As Brazil’s economic growth â€" once spurred by consumer spending and commodities exports, has slowed â€" Mr. Batista’s companies fell victim to excessive debt and missed production targets.
To offset some of declining fortunes, Mr. Batista has been actively selling assets in recent months. In July, Mr. Batista sold a controlling interest in his electricity company, MPX, to the German utility E.On. In recent weeks, rumors that Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Development Company, was interested in acquiring some of his assets have been circulating in the local news media. The Mubadala Development Company has already invested over $2 billion in Mr. Batista’s companies.
Brazil’s securities and exchange commission, known as the CVM, is also investigating whether OGX, which frequently announced major petroleum discoveries which subsequently turned out not to be viable, may have tried to manipulate its stock market price.
Luana Helsinger, a petroleum analyst for Grupo Bursátil Mexicano Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, said the recent asset sales won’t necessarily end Mr. Batista’s problems.
Ms. Helsinger said OGX was the “most vulnerable†firm in Mr. Batista’s group, because it was “a petroleum company that right now is hardly producing any petroleum.†Like most of Mr. Batista’s firms, OGX does not have the cash flow to develop its assets.
Mr. Batista’s companies are regarded as crucial to Brazil’s economy, and news reports have suggested that the national government would intervene to save them or to broker their sale to local companies in order to keep them out of foreign firms’ hands.
But the June street protests, in which many demonstrators claimed the government favors the rich and well-connected, have created pressure on President Dilma Rousseff’s party to avoid bailing out the country’s most ostentatious billionaire.
Government officials have insisted Mr. Batista’s companies do not need help.
“The group has high quality assets with which it can rebalance itself,†Luciano Coutinho, the head of BNDES, Brazil’s national development bank, said Thursday.
Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting from New York.
