Petrobras CEO quits amid corruption scandal
RIO DE JANEIRO • The day after Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s embattled chief executive Maria das Gracas Foster met with Brazil’s president and dozens of protesters picketed her house, she is out of a job.
Ms. Foster and five members of her management team resigned Wednesday, state-run Petrobras said in a one-sentence statement.
The oil producer, once a source of national pride and symbol of Brazil’s arrival as an emerging-market powerhouse, gained almost US$6 billion in market value Tuesday on speculation Ms. Foster would be replaced, and continued to rally Wednesday after the company confirmed her departure.
“The president is fully committed to trying to avoid Petrobras being a drag on growth and potentially to diminishing her own political liability,” Christopher Garman, head of emerging-markets research at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, said by phone before the resignations were announced. “Turnover in leadership kind of mitigates both of those risks.”
Dozens banged pots, blew whistles and waved flags in front of Ms. Foster’s apartment a block from Copacabana beach Tuesday evening to demand she step down.
The people, mainly from nearby upscale neighbourhoods, were protesting Brazil’s biggest graft scandal as police stood to the side and a huddle of security guards barred the entrance.
The Rio de Janeiro-based oil company said it will hold a board meeting Feb. 6 to elect replacements for Ms. Foster and the five managers, whom it did not name. Petrobras’s press office declined to comment further when contacted by telephone.
The resignation of Ms. Foster fuelling a debate among investors and lawmakers over who should lead a turnaround as the state-run oil company tries to recover from Brazil’s biggestever corruption scandal.
President Dilma Rousseff is considering various options and the only real requirement is that the new CEO have the cachet within markets to help bolster investor confidence, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the talks are private.
Federal police are investigating allegations that a cartel of construction companies fixed bids on the producer’s contracts and bribed executives during a span stretching back to when Ms. Rousseff served as Petrobras chairwoman from 2003 to 2010.
Ms. Foster said in December she had offered to resign three times and would wait on a decision from Ms. Rousseff.
Ms. Foster, 61, became CEO of Petrobras in 2012 after serving as secretary of oil and natural gas.