AB-InBev investors Lemann, Telles and Sicupira to pay record fine
The fines, among the highest ever paid by individuals in a financial lawsuit in Brazil, stemmed from a complaint filed in 2004 by Previ, a large Latin American pension fund, against terms of the sale of AmBev to Belgium’s Interbrew and the takeover of Canadian brewer Labatt, the regulator said.
Mr Lemann, who is listed by Forbes magazine as the third wealthiest person in the country, Mr Telles and Mr Sicupira each agreed to pay 5 million reais (USD 2.9 million) to settle accusations that they wrongfully used a stock options plan to increase their stake in AmBev and failed to meet their fiduciary duties, the regulator said in a statement.
Sicupira, the ninth richest Brazilian according to Forbes, also agreed to pay an additional 3.03 million reais (USD 1.9 million) to settle an accusation of conflict of interest.
Brazil’s securities regulator has stepped up its probe of insider trading and other types of fraud in the country as more individuals put funds in the country’s booming stock market.
Messrs Telles, Lemann and Sicupira founded the Brazilian investment bank Garantia, which was sold to Credit Suisse in 1998, before making a fortune in the beer industry through a series of mergers and acquisitions that formed AB-InBev. The three are among the largest individual owners of AB-InBev.
Brazil’s securities regulator also said six other AmBev executives agreed to pay a total of 1.4 million reais to settle accusations they didn’t fulfil their duties with regard to the takeover of Labatt. Among those executives is Luis Felipe Dutra, AB-InBev’s current Chief Financial Officer who was AmBev’s Director of Investor Relations at the time. He agreed to pay 400,000 reais (USD 231,000).
The names of the other five AmBev executives who settled with the financial regulator were not mentioned in the report.
Which, of course, got the bloggers wonder whether AB-InBev’s CEO, Carlos Brito, was among them. At AmBev, Mr Brito held various positions in Finance, Operations, and Sales, before being appointed Chief Executive Officer in January 2004.
