In 2012 Eike Batista was the richest man in Brazil with a net worth of $34.5 billion, and by his account he would have become the richest man in the world by 2015. Batista had built a successful commodities empire in Brazil. In 2012, the Brazilian billionaire made a big announcement that his company had found oil off the coast of his home country and would make record profits. However, that’s when things started to go wrong, beginning a run that would culminate in the loss of almost all his fortune. According to bloomberg.com:
“To say Batista overreached would be to seriously undersell what has happened in the 18 months since that self-regarding presstravaganza of hubris and magical thinking. In what is shaping up to be one of the largest personal and financial collapses in history—if not the largest—Batista may be nearing bankruptcy. On Oct. 1, OGX missed a $45 million interest payment on bond debt it had racked up during its rise. Batista has sold his planes and his helicopter, and creditors are arguing over the remains of his companies. He’s no longer on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and has become the butt of jokes in Brazil. One suggests that Pope Francis plans to return to Brazil soon and will again be visiting the poor, including Batista.”
Of course you don’t become the world’s eighth-richest person in the world without confidence, and Batista is still confident he’ll make a comeback. As also reported by bloomberg.com:
“These days, Batista is melancholic and dazed and yet still craving the kind of attention he once commanded, according to people who have seen him in recent months. He told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Sept. 15 that he would make a comeback, mentioning the example of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and electric car maker Tesla Motors.”
Check out the video below of Batista’s epic fall from grace, and read the full story here.
