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.

‘They’re back because they’re investing’

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.

Growing global influence

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.”

Operation Car Wash

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.

The post Brazil beef barons’ Wall Street listing caps a return from exile appeared first on Farmtario.

It used terms such as “commitment” and “pledge,” and a slogan that “anything less is not an option,” to describe its plan on calls with investors about a sustainable bond issue and in marketing materials, including for its beef.

Nearly four years later, Jason Weller, global chief sustainability officer at the company in which the Batista family is the largest investor, told Reuters in a rare interview that its emissions goal was merely an “aspiration.”

“It was never a promise that JBS was going to make this happen,” Weller said about the net-zero emissions pledge.

He also said JBS cannot control how farms operate, although they are encouraging voluntary change. The company had pledged in 2021 to end illegal Amazon deforestation by its cattle suppliers by 2025.

In a written statement to Reuters after the interview, JBS said: “Our climate ambitions have not changed. Any assertion otherwise is completely untrue.”

Reuters found that investors have achieved little in holding JBS to its pledges in the last five years, with no shareholder proposals being put forward about the environment, few voting against the Batistas on any issue and hardly any questions about sustainability on earnings calls.

Profits are soaring on strong meat demand, helping drive JBS’ Sao Paulo-listed stock last month to a record high.

Deforestation by cattle farmers is pushing the Amazon closer to a tipping point at which the world’s largest rainforest will gradually stop locking away climate-warming carbon dioxide.

Brazilian cattle ranchers are responsible for 80 per cent of current Amazon deforestation, according to researchers.

The difficulty of reducing the environmental damage related to JBS and other agriculture companies could undermine President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as he prepares to host global climate talks in November.

Oil majors Shell and BP are also among global companies to have softened their climate pledges.

“There are far too few investors using their shareholder influence to engage with this issue,” said Vemund Olsen, a senior analyst for sustainable investments at Norway-based Storebrand Asset Management, which sold its JBS stock in 2017.

“It’s an issue to which the entire industry needs to find common solutions, and which also requires improved regulation and enforcement of legislation in countries like Brazil.”

In October, Brazil’s environmental protection agency fined ranches and meatpackers, including JBS, for raising or buying cattle on illegally deforested Amazon land.

Supply chain challenge

Environmental activists have calculated that 97 per cent of JBS’ emissions stem from greenhouse gases released through deforestation, biodiversity loss and pollution.

In emissions accounting, these are called emissions from changes in land use. JBS has called these calculations flawed.

While JBS reports indirect emissions across its supply chain, it excludes emissions related to changes in land use.

“There is not an approved format today on how to calculate land-use-change emissions for which we have confidence,” Weller said. JBS instead focuses on emissions from its own operations, including slaughterhouses.

Other global companies, including packaged food company Mars and grain traders Archer Daniels Midland and Bunge, have begun disclosing change-of-land-use emissions.

“We do not have the ability to mandate or force a change on farms, nor do we have the ability to mandate and change how our customers use our products,” Weller said.

Because of these limits, he said JBS had “zero operational, contractual or legal control of its supply chain.”

The executive, however, added that “despite not having any mandate, we’re acting on our supply chain, investing, and driving real change.”

Little pressure

Morningstar Sustainalytics, an independent sustainability ratings agency, places JBS in the 95th percentile among the companies it analyzes, with a “severe-risk” rating attached to its environmental performance.

Reuters found in interviews with investors and reviews of company filings that the fast-growing company faced little pressure even as evidence mounted that it was on track to miss sustainability targets.

The company’s 20 largest investors declined requests to discuss the company even as demands from European companies to stop deforestation mounted.

Morningstar data showed that 17 funds labeled as “sustainable” hold JBS stock. All declined to discuss their engagement with the company or their investment rationale, or did not respond to requests for comment.

Weller said JBS is committed to improving transparency and engagement with investors on sustainability.

The ability of private investors to influence the company is already limited as the Batistas hold almost half of the company’s stock. Another 21 per cent is owned by Brazilian development bank BNDES, which has sided with management in votes.

Non-public advice to investors last year from proxy advisor Glass Lewis showed JBS scored low on climate risk mitigation and board accountability, while proxy advisor ISS also raised concerns over management and “egregious governance practices in the context of corruption.”

During the broad anti-corruption investigation known as Operation Car Wash, which began in 2014 and included companies across Latin America, a court banned brothers Wesley and Joesley Batista from holding management positions.

It came after they admitted bribing approximately 2,000 Brazilian regulators, government officials and politicians, including a former president, over a span of 10 years.

Last April, the Batista brothers rejoined JBS’s board following a shareholder vote.

The post Brazilian meatpacker JBS says net-zero emissions pledge was ‘never a promise’ appeared first on Farmtario.