Stocks, lies, and conference calls: the scandal of reinsurance firm IRB Brasil

After being accused of market manipulation and lying about investment Warren Buffet's multinational conglomerate, reinsurer IRB Brasil saw its stocks plummet

Mar 06, 2020 18:25 8 min read (Updated: Mar 06, 2020 18:34)

Forget Showtime’s hit TV series “Billions,” the biggest financial market drama of 2020 is happening in Brazil—and it even has stocks master Warren Buffett starring in a leading role.

The story revolves around IRB Brasil RE, the former state-owned company that became Latin America’s biggest reinsurance group. After going public in 2017, shares in IRB rose 371 percent in the years that followed, only to plunge 60 percent in one month—half of that nosedive coming in a single day.

It all started when private equity firm Squadra Investimentos questioned how profitable the company actually was, a spark that evolved into...

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Stocks, lies, and conference calls: the scandal of reinsurance firm IRB Brasil

After being accused of market manipulation and lying about investment Warren Buffet's multinational conglomerate, reinsurer IRB Brasil saw its stocks plummet

Access all of The Brazilian Report

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