Brazilian Alpargatas, known for its famous Havaianas slippers, has a new owner. Investment firm J&F Investimentos sold its majority stake to three Brazilian banks.
Corruption scandal
The Villela and Setubal families own the banks, which paid 3.5 billion Brazilian real (950 million euro) to acquire Alpargatas. J&F, property of Brazilian billionaire family Batista, is currently caught in a major corruption scandal and is alleged to have bribed nearly 2,000 politicians. It was fined about 2.8 billion euro and has sold Alpargatas to partially pay for these fines.
J&F only acquired a majority stake in Alpargatas 18 months ago, but did not get much joy out of the deal. The company also manages several other Brazilian fashion brands that are not as well-known over here.
