{UAH} How Brazil's Banking Golden Boy, Arrested in Rio, Built an Empire - Bloomberg Business

Andre Esteves, the brash banker who once joked his firm's name, Grupo BTG Pactual, stood for 'better than Goldman,' became the latest high-profile executive dragged into Brazil's widening corruption scandal.

The 47-year-old billionaire was arrested Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, along with Senator Delcidio Amaral, police said. Esteves allegedly sought an agreement with Amaral to interfere with testimony from a jailed former executive of oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA, according to a court document.

Esteves made a splash on the international financial stage -- and became Brazil's youngest self-made billionaire -- when he sold Pactual to UBS for $2.6 billion in 2006. 

"He epitomizes the idea of a private, successful, entrepreneurial generation of Brazilian bankers -- that's what he represents," said Felipe Monteiro, a professor of strategy at Insead in France. His alleged involvement "with the most classic type of old politics is somehow strange."

Esteves joins more than 100 people who have already been arrested, including former top executives at state-owned Petrobras and Brazil's biggest construction conglomerate. 

The sweeping investigation into alleged corruption at Petrobras, which began in March 2014, has helped make Brazil's real the worst-performing major currency this year, contributed to an economic contraction and shaken the government of President Dilma Rousseff. 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-25/how-brazil-s-banking-golden-boy-arrested-in-rio-built-empire

Sincerely,

Brian M. Kwesiga