The oil and gas company, launched in 2007 by Brazilian entrepreneur Eike Batista, which raised $1.3 billion in November 2007, has had a dramatic and very public collapse, entering bankruptcy in October this year and delisting from the Bovespa in November. Since October 2010 the company’s market capitalization has fallen by more than $45 billion, with a negative impact on the equity portfolios of many international investors that had bought into the Brazil pre-salt-layer oil discovery growth story. However, investors’ losses could have been worse.
Cesar Dias Ramos, now CEO of Momentum Energia, was formerly president of Perenco Petróleo e Gás. French oil company Perenco came very close to listing its Brazilian subsidiary in a deal that would have had a similar fate to OGX, if less dramatic in terms of size. "We tried an IPO [aiming to raise just over $500 million] of the company in 2011," says Dias Ramos. "We had a 50% participation in five offshore blocks in the Espírito Santo basin; the other 50% was owned by OGX. At that time OGX was a successful example of an IPO. It had achieved a valuation of more than $3 a barrel of prospective reserves.
