By Luciana Magalhaes and Jeffrey T. Lewis
SAO PAULO--Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista moved to replace the
chief executive of his shipbuilding company, OSX Brasil SA, and to
change the firm's restructuring consultant, in another surprising
twist amid one of the largest corporate collapses in Latin American
history.
OSX's board also voted to approve an emergency court petition
for bankruptcy protection, the company said Friday evening in a
regulatory filing.
Ivo Dworschak Filho will take over from Marcelo Gomes as OSX's
CEO. Mr. Gomes is also general director at restructuring advising
company Alvarez & Marsal, which is being replaced by Angra
Partners, the company overseeing the turnaround of sister oil firm
OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes S.A.
Oil company OGX filed for bankruptcy protection last week, after
defaulting on a bond interest payment early in October.
Shipbuilder OSX scheduled a shareholder meeting for Nov. 28, to
ratify the board's decisions. OSX's board also chose to hire a
consulting company to audit its financial results from 2010 to
2013.
OSX was created to support the expected growth of OGX, which was
crushed by a pile of debt after its oil fields proved to be
unproductive. OSX raised billions of dollars to build oil platforms
and a shipyard that were mostly linked to contracts with its sister
company, which until recently was the backbone of Mr. Batista's
infrastructure empire.
Under Alvarez & Marsal's advising, OSX planned a partial
judicial-recovery process, mainly covering debt owed by the holding
company and the shipbuilding unit, according to a person familiar
with the plan. Three giant, floating production, storage and
offloading vessels registered with separate companies in the
Netherlands were set to be excluded from the judicial-recovery
process, the same person said. The platforms are valued at a total
of about $3 billion, according to people in the business.
It is unclear at this point whether such a strategy will be kept
under the new adviser.
OSX has some $2.3 billion in debt, of which close to $1 billion
is owed to Brazil's government-backed Caixa Economica Federal and
Brazilian development bank BNDES, as well as some large service
providers, including Spanish construction company Acciona and
Argentine Italian conglomerate Techint Group.
OSX also has renegotiated its agreement with LLX Logistica SA,
Mr. Batista's logistics unit, it said in a separate filing. The
shipbuilder agreed to return some land at LLX's Acu superport
project in exchange for lower monthly payments. OSX won't have to
fulfill its capital investment obligations regarding costs and
investments for a breakwater and access canal for the TX2 terminal
at the port, it said in the filing.
The agreement, however, must be approved by Caixa Economica
Federal and other parties to the two companies' original financing
agreement, OSX said.
Write to Luciana Magalhaes at luciana.magalhaes@dowjones.com
