By Luciana Magalhaes, Lisandra Paraguassu and Ricardo Brito
GUARUJA, Brazil -Brazilian meatpacker JBS begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, capping a stunning comeback by brothers Joesley and Wesley Batista less than a decade after they were jailed in a record-breaking corruption scandal and forced into the backseat of their global food empire.
A U.S. listing for the world’s biggest meatpacker, which the company has sought since 2009, comes as the brothers, now back on the board of JBS, have also recovered much of their vaunted influence among Brazil’s political elite.
Their prominence was on display on Saturday when Wesley Batista, fresh off a trip to Paris with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, took the stage to discuss the economic outlook with Brazil’s central bank chief and senior bankers.
Batista was in good spirits, pushing back against some of the criticism that Brazilian business leaders have leveled against Lula’s leftist government.
“We need to look at what’s working too, because everyone here is making investment plans and growing,” he told the beachside gathering in Sao Paulo state, drawing applause.
Few business leaders can match the brothers’ access in the capital Brasilia. Lula’s public agenda shows that one or both have appeared alongside the president during at least five public events since last year.
They have also held several private meetings with Lula and his ministers, two people with knowledge of the cabinet’s private schedules said.
JBS said its meetings with public officials adhere to its code of conduct. The presidential press office did not respond to questions about the meetings.
It is a far cry from the brothers’ nadir nearly a decade ago, when they confessed to bribing hundreds of politicians, stepped away from their corporate empire and spent months in jail fighting insider trading allegations.
“They’re back because they’re investing,” said a person close to Brazil’s presidency.
JBS operates hundreds of meatpacking plants across more than 20 countries, rivaling Tyson Foods in the U.S. beef market and ranking among Brazil’s biggest companies by revenue and employment. The Batistas’ parent company, J&F, has expanded across the Brazilian economy into banking, energy and logistics.
A $5 million donation by JBS subsidiary Pilgrim’s Pride to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee underscored the growing global reach of their influence.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren grilled JBS in a public letter last month, suggesting the donation and subsequent approval of the U.S. listing by the Securities Exchange Commission within months “raise serious concerns about a potential quid-pro-quo arrangement.”
In response to questions about the donation, JBS said that Pilgrim’s “has a long bipartisan history of participating in the civic process.”
The brothers’ rehabilitation extends beyond politics.
After years embroiled in Brazil’s biggest-ever corruption scandal, Operation Car Wash, J&F has secured a court order suspending a $2 billion fine for its role in the scheme.
At the height of the scandal, the brothers admitted to bribing some 1,800 politicians. In 2017, Joesley Batista recorded a conversation allegedly discussing a bribery scheme with then-President Michel Temer as part of a plea bargain deal.
The Batista brothers, who stepped away from JBS leadership positions during stretches of the scandal, were later arrested for alleged insider trading based on that sealed plea deal. They were later acquitted in the case.
In 2023, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice suspended the fine against J&F in their plea deal, accepting the argument that prosecutors were biased at the time. The case awaits wider review by the court.
“The conflicts of the past were well handled in a conciliatory way,” said Fabio Medina Osorio, Brazil’s solicitor general during the Temer administration.
(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo, Lisandra Paraguassu and Ricardo Brito in Brasila; Writing by Luciana Magalhaes and Manuela Andreoni; Editing by Brad Haynes and David Gregorio)
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