Making meat is a messy business. But for the Brazilian meat giant JBS, obtaining the approval of exchange your actions In the New York Stock Exchange it has been even more messy.
Environmentalists, animal rights groups, US legislators and even some of their own investors have tried to stop a US list for JBS, pointing out the long history of corruption, monopolistic behavior of the company and Environmental destruction.
But JBS has persevered, saying that the dual listings in Sao Paulo and New York would attract new investors and better reflect their global portfolio. At the end of last month, the United States Stock Exchange and Securities Commission granted The company Request to list your actions in the New York Stock Exchange.
JBS is one in the world larger food companieswith more than 250 production facilities in 17 countries. Half of your annual income arrives of the United StatesWhere you have More than 72,000 employees. It is the best producer of beef in the United States and is the second largest producer of pork birds and pork.
On Friday, JBS minority shareholders, who have 30% of their actions, are scheduled to vote on the double list plan. If they approve it, the company could list its shares in New York at the beginning of next month.
The first total votes, which JBS published Thursday in a presentation in Brazil, showed that 52% of shareholders opposed the plan. But there were many more votes to count, so the result was far from being clear.
The past fall, 20 environmental organizations, including Mighty Earth, Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network, signed an open letter to JBS investors who oppose the list, saying that it would put the climate at greater risk.
Glass Lewis, an influential independent investor advice firm, was also one of those who recommend that shareholders reject the plan.
In his report, Glass Lewis said the recent return of the Joesley brothers and Wesley Batista To the JBS Board you must worry about investors. The brothers, who are the children of the founder of JBS, were briefly imprisoned in Brazil in 2017 for charges of bribery and corruption.
“In our opinion, the participation of the company and Joesley and Wesley Batista in multiple high profile scandals has tarnished the company’s reputation, undermining the confidence of the interested parties and raising a significant risk for their competitive position,” said Glass Lewis.
Glass Lewis also opposed the company’s plan for double participation classes, which would give the batteries and other controlling shareholders plus voting power.
In his response to the Glass Lewis report, JBS said he has established stricter controls and anti -corruption training in the company in recent years. He also said that an US list would ensure greater supervision of US authorities.
“We believe that this transaction will increase our visibility in global markets, it will attract new investors and strengthen our position as the world leader of the food industry,” said the CEO of JBS Global, Gilberto Tomazoni, in a statement last month when the company announced Friday’s vote.
But many US legislators are not convinced that JBS belongs to the New York Stock Exchange.
In a letter sent last week to JBS, American senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, said that Pilgrim pride – An American company owned by JBS – was the largest individual donor to President Donald Trump’s Inaugural Committee, with a gift of $ 5 million. The approval of the SEC occurred only weeks after that donation, Warren said.
“I worry that Pilgrim’s pride has made his contribution to the inaugural fund so that the favor of the Trump administration,” Warren wrote in the letter, who asked the company why the donation was made.
In a statement, JBS said he has a “long bipartisan history to participate in the civic process.”
Warren was also among a bipartisan group of 15 American senators who sent a letter to the SEC in January 2024 and the agency urging a list of the United States for JBS. The senators, a diverse group that rarely accepts politics, included Republicans Marco Rubio de Florida and Josh Hawley in Missouri, Democrat Cory Booker from New Jersey and Bernie Sanders de Vermont.
The letter pointed out that in 2020, JANDF Investments, a JBS controlling shareholder who is owned by the Batista family, declared himself guilty of bribery charges in the Federal Court of the United States and agreed to pay fines of $ 256 million.
Pilgrim’s pride also said He declared himself guilty to the pricing positions in 2021. And he said that the investigations of the American Senate found that JBS is “giving a blind eye” to the destruction of the tropical jungle in the Amazon for its suppliers.
“The approval of the list proposed by JBS would submit investors to investors to risk a company with a history of flagrant systemic corruption, and further strengthen their monopoly power and embolden their monopoly practices,” said the letter.
