In the first hours since the world’s largest meatpacker began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday under the ticker JBS, the stock had a slow start before ending the day up nearly 5%.
The addition of American investors has been expected to help the Brazilian conglomerate with $77 billion in 2024 revenue from processing and selling beef, pork, chicken and lamb to more than 100 countries. During the first day of trading, shares rose around 3% before briefly falling past where the stock opened at $13.65 per share at around 2:30 p.m eastern. As of the close of markets, the stock was back up and hit a high $14.29, or around 5% up. The market capitalization of JBS was more than $31 billion. And the billionaire sons of the founder, who guided the expansion of JBS beyond Brazil—and went to jail seven years ago after its American acquisition spree got ensnared in a massive corruption scandal involving 1,800 politicians in in their homeland—are now richer for it.
As JBS stock rose, the net worths of Joesley and Wesley Batista increased an estimated $200 million each. The brothers, who are the top shareholders in the company and serve as board directors, are now worth $4.8 billion each. Together, through family holding companies, they own nearly 50% of JBS.
Billionaires Wesley (left) and Joesley Batista are the top shareholders of JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, which began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.
Andre Ribeiro/Zumapress/Newscom; Evaristo SA/AFP/Getty Images
Joesley and Wesley Batista, 53 and 52 respectively, were personally charged with foreign corruption in the U.S. as well as insider trading allegations in Brazil (related to the timing of the news of their bribery scheme) that saw them briefly jailed in Brazil for about six months from 2017 to 2018.
In all, the Batistas and one of their holding companies agreed to more than three dozen incidents of bribery in Brazil, according to their 2017 cooperation agreements with the Brazilian government. And the U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission found evidence of some $150 million in kickback when the Batistas and their holding company, J&F Investimentos, pled guilty to U.S. foreign corruption charges in 2020. J&F paid a $128 million criminal fine as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice. J&F also paid $27 million over foreign corruption charges with the SEC. At the same time, the Batista brothers, who are Brazilian citizens, settled a civil penalty with the SEC and paid $550,000 each.
Until 2025, there had been a bipartisan effort to stop the U.S. listing on the NYSE. Last year, 15 senators—including Republicans Josh Hawley of Missouri and John Barrasso of Wyoming as well as Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts—denounced a potential IPO. Years prior, former Florida Senator Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, was one of JBS’ loudest critics and twice requested a broad investigation by the Treasury Department into the Batistas and their assets.
The long-delayed SEC approval for JBS’ dual-listing came just two days after the Trump Administration’s new SEC chairman was sworn into office.
The SEC approval also came two days after it was revealed in a public filing with the federal election commission that the largest donor to the Trump Inaugural Committee was the JBS subsidiary, chicken processor Pilgrim’s Pride. The $5 million donation to Trump’s Inauguration was five times larger than the checks given by Amazon, Meta, Uber, Nvidia and Microsoft, which each gave $1 million. A JBS spokesperson has denied any link in the timing of the donation. The Trump Administration did not return request for comment.
Allowing JBS to trade in the U.S. is likely bad news for America’s homegrown—and largest overall—meatpacker, Tyson. With a market capitalization of just under $20 billion, Tyson is slightly bigger than JBS in beef and chicken, but its stock price has been struggling, down 8%, in the past three months.
Tyson has historically traded at around double the multiple of JBS, but analysts expect the addition of JBS to an American stock exchange to change that, which means JBS will have more buying power, and the competition is on.
“Food is a national security issue,” says Carlos Laboy, the lead analyst on JBS at HSBC. “It benefits the United States to have the largest protein company in the world not only operated in the U.S. but listed in the U.S. and with the oversight of U.S. regulators. The alternative scenarios are not favorable to the U.S.”
