Bill Gates Sues Petrobras For Stock Losses

scott

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/25/us-petrobras-billgates-lawsuit-idUSKCN0RP1OY20150925

"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has sued Brazil's Petrobras to recoup stock losses stemming from a corruption scandal at the state-run oil company.

According to a complaint filed late Thursday night in federal court in Manhattan, Petrobras' "pervasive bribery and money laundering scheme" caused the Gates Foundation and another plaintiff, WGI Emerging Markets Fund LLC, to lose tens of millions of dollars by investing in the company."

Yeah....I can't see this one being a win for Gates.

Sven

Tough to call it a charity. Brazil is supposedly one of the more progressive EM country. Guess not!

VintageFreak

What happened to rich people deserve to be rich because they take risks mantra? What about individual investors who lost with Petrobras?

How about suing an individual - the CEO - of the company for incompetence? Of wait, incompetence is not illegal. No wait, accepting job you are not competent for should be illegal. But wait...

Listen Billy Boy. Keep the money in short term treasuries. Then sue the government for keeping interest rates low.

Sven

He should take Warren Buffet and invest in boring index funds instead. Clearly benefit of diversifying risk applies to everybody, not just the average investors.

scott

VintageFreak said:

What happened to rich people deserve to be rich because they take risks mantra? What about individual investors who lost with Petrobras?

How about suing an individual - the CEO - of the company for incompetence? Of wait, incompetence is not illegal. No wait, accepting job you are not competent for should be illegal. But wait...

Listen Billy Boy. Keep the money in short term treasuries. Then sue the government for keeping interest rates low.

He's suing for serious corruption, but I still can't see that being anything that gets him any results in this case.

Gates does not invest, he has a manager names Michael Larson who is actually a skilled investor - well, aside from putting money into Petrobras.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/this-mans-job-make-bill-gates-richer-1411093811

tigerman3

The foundation is a charity. It is a philanthropic organization that gives billions to needy organizations. If the trust lost money as a result of fraud and corruption, I agree that it has the right to recovery damages just the same as if ENRON fraud had caused it to suffer a loss.

BobC

With all the billions in the foundation accounts, seems to me as "fiduciaries" and stewards, individual, emerging market issues would be scrupulously avoided.

scott

BobC said:

With all the billions in the foundation accounts, seems to me as "fiduciaries" and stewards, individual, emerging market issues would be scrupulously avoided.

The last 13F filed by the Gates Foundation Trust:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166559/000110465915038724/xslForm13F_X01/a15-11748_1informationtable.xml

Much of the portfolio is still Berkshire Hathaway (Gates is on the Berkshire board.)

This thread was about the company's exposure to Petrobras, but the other Latin American trouble spot for the portfolio has been Arcos Dorados, which has basically been obliterated. Otherwise, Michael Larson has been a terrifically successful manager for Gates. Additionally, a number of the holdings have been there for quite a while - there seems to be little turnover.